flass 737^ t) C ^ 
Book- ^ ^ 

COPYRIGHT D^OSIT 



THE OCCULT WORLD 



33p fyt sanu 9tut&atr. 
ESOTERIC BUDDHISM. 

NEW AMERICAN EDITION. 

WITH INTRODUCTION WRITTEN EXPRESSLY 
FOR IT BY THE AUTHOR. 

i6mo, $1.25. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Publishers, 
4 Park Street, Boston. 



THE OCCULT WORLD 




A. P. SINNETT 

AUTHOR OF "ESOTERIC BUDDHISM " 



SECOND AMERICAN, FROM THE FOURTH ENGLISH 
EDITION 

WITH 

THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTIONS AND 
A NEW PREFACE 




BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 

1885 



Copyright, 1885, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



To one whose comprehension of Nature and Humanity 
ranges so far beyond the science and philosophy of 
Europe, that only the broadest-minded representatives 
of either will be able to realise the existence of such 
powers in Man as those he constantly exercises, — to 

THE MAHATMA KOOT HOOMI. 

whose gracious friendship has given the present writer 
his title to claim the attention of the European world, 
this little volume, with permission sought and obtained, 
is affectionately dedicated. 

A. P. Sinnett. 



CONTENTS. 

♦ Page 

Preface to the American Edition ........ ix 

Introduction 1 

Occultism and Its Adepts 15 

*^ The Theosophical Society 28 

First Occult Experiences 42 

Teachings of Occult Philosophy 154 

Later Occult Phenomena 173 

Appendix .... 206 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



I venture to think that this volume has ac- 
quired an importance that did not attach to it at 
first, now that subsequent experience has enabled 
me to follow it up with a more elaborate philosoph- 
ical treatise. In the later work I have endeavored 
to set forth the general outlines of that knowledge 
concerning the higher mysteries of Nature which the 
following pages describe as possessed by the Indian 
"Mahatmas," or Adept Brothers. To that later 
work the reader whose attention may be arrested 
by the story told here must of course be referred ; 
but meanwhile, the present introduction to the sub- 
ject may be recommended to public notice now in a 
more confident tone than that which I was justified 
in taking up when it was first put forward. At that 
time the experiences I felt impelled to relate em- 
bodied no absolute promise of the systematic teach- 
ing accorded to me afterwards. Certainly those 
experiences in themselves appeared to me to claim 
telling. They seemed by far too remarkable to 
be left buried unfruitfully in the consciousness of 
the few persons concerned with them. It was true 
they elucidated no great principles of science ; they 
merely suggested that for some of the abnormal 
phenomena which have arrested public attention dur- 



x PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



ing the last few years a more scientific explanation 
than those usually assigned might be possible. They 
afforded, if not absolute proof, at least an over- 
whelming assumption, that living men might actu- 
ally develop faculties qualified to operate freely on 
that superior plane of Nature beyond the reach of 
the physical senses which had been generally sup- 
posed accessible only to the spirits of the dead. But 
all was still shadowy and ill-defined. The story I 
had to tell revealed a magnificent possibility rather 
than a definite prospect. It would still, perhaps, 
have been an interesting story, even if the curtain 
had gone down upon the situation as I left it when 
these pages were first put together, but it would 
have been nothing then, compared to what it has 
since become. 

Now the position in which the subject stands has 
altogether changed. The tentative communications 
addressed to me by my Mahatma correspondent in 
the first instance have paved the way for a long se- 
ries of still more instructive and valuable letters. 
Assisted in other ways as well, my comprehension of 
occult philosophy advanced so far during the two 
years following the first appearance of this volume, 
that I was enabled to publish a more important 
statement, defining the outlines of that teaching, 
and exhibiting in a connected and intelligible shape 
the great esoteric theory of human evolution on this 
earth (and of the cosmogony on which it depends) 
with which the Adepts deal. The opening which 
presented itself to me in 1880 proved, in fact, no 
passing adventure, but the beginning of a new intel- 
lectual life. Attracted to it as I was at the time, I 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. xi 



was certainly far then from divining the magnitude 
of the results destined to flow from it. But now 
that the proportions of the revelation I have thus 
been happily instrumental in procuring for the ser- 
vice of my readers have become apparent, I revert 
to the introductory episode of the undertaking with 
the certain assurance that I shall be engaging no 
one who will spare me his attention in any waste 
of time. 

I am bold enough to say this because the Mahat- 
mas, or great philosophical teachers of Asia, into 
some relations with whom I was enabled to come 
under the circumstances described in the following 
narrative, have now surrendered to the outer world 
so much of the spiritual science they have hitherto 
jealously guarded, that the whole framework of 
their stupendous doctrine has grown intelligible. 
Fragments of esoteric truth — of that science of su- 
perphysical nature which the Adepts explore — have 
been thrown out into the world at large from time 
to time before now, but in puzzling and unattractive 
disguises. The esoteric doctrine is no new system 
of belief, but, on the contrary, can be discerned now 
as lurking in a good deal of old Kabalistic and Ori- 
ental literature, that very few ordinary readers could 
have made sense of without the help of the keys now 
put in their hands. But now at last the subject has 
emerged into the clear daylight of modern thinking, 
and the central principle of the sublime esoteric 
doctrine stands plainly revealed as one which har- 
monizes in absolute perfection with the preparatory 
conceptions of Nature that have been derived by 
physical science from the observation and reflection 



xii PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



of the current century. Biology is the latest, and, 
in some respects, the greatest of the physical sci- 
ences ; and as the corollary, the complement, the 
crown of the science of Life, we are now furnished, 
by the teaching that has come to us from the East, 
with the science of spiritual evolution. Without 
this it may now be seen by those who appreciate the 
necessity of this doctrine, — the manifest, inherent 
self -evidence of it when it is once fairly understood, 
— without it the doctrine of physical evolution is a 
libel on Nature, a caricature of her grandest pur- 
poses. The great idea to which I am now referring 
exhibits the human soul as a continuous entity, sub- 
ject to an individual evolution of vast duration, and 
developing on the spiritual plane of existence, as a 
result of its successive returns to Earth life. Mount- 
ing always upward, it has passed through the lower 
manifestations of the animal kingdom, and can never 
again revert to them ; but as regards the f uture, it 
will not merely pass through a purposeless succes- 
sion of human lives like those going on around us. 
It will advance and expand in its individual prog- 
ress towards perfection, pari passu with that gen- 
eral improvement of physical types on Earth which 
is still going forward, though the short views of 
human nature afforded us by mere historic observa- 
tion may not render this process of improvement as 
perceptible to uninitiated intelligence as it becomes 
to the psychic discernment of the Adept. 

To comprehend the way the work goes on, we have 
to contemplate the operations of Nature on other 
planes besides those cognizable to the physical senses. 
And it soon becomes apparent that the physical life 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION, xiii 



of the Earth is only one process of the long series 
over which the evolution of humanity extends. But 
— and this is one of the most admirably scientific 
and ethically beautiful of the ideas brought out by 
occult study — the physical life of the Earth is 
shown to be no incoherent episode in the experi- 
ences of a human soul, no futile incident in the 
course of a spiritual evolution, the major portion of 
which is accomplished in higher spheres of being. 
It is inseparably blended along its whole course with 
the spiritual growth of the soul. The Earth is 
shown to be no cosmic railway carriage which we 
enter for the purpose of accomplishing a more or 
less laborious journey, and the discomforts of which 
we may carelessly forget when we are able to jump 
out of it on reaching our destination. It is the 
home of our race for a long time to come, if not 
for eternity, and it is our interest, as well as our 
duty, to embellish and improve and ennoble it. " In 
my Father's house," says the old symbolical text, 
" are many mansions," and in this planetary house 
of humanity there are many more states of exist- 
ence than the physical state. Some of these states 
may be far more enjoyable, for that matter, than 
the physical state as this is at present ; and the eso- 
teric doctrine shows us that the duration of the 
higher spiritual states, when each individual Ego 
passes each time into these, is enormously more pro- 
longed than its physical states, but both kinds of 
existence are equally necessary in the whole scheme 
of things. 

All these views, and the vast mass of explanatory 
detail which has since been furnished to the in- 



xiv PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



quirers of the Theosophical Society, were still unde- 
veloped for those of us who were pursuing the clue 
afforded by my experiences of 1880, when the pres- 
ent book was written. But I refer to them here 
because I want very briefly to indicate the direction 
which our later inquiries took when, our attention 
having been arrested by the strange and startling 
phenomena here described, it dawned upon us by 
degrees that the intellectual instruction the Mahat- 
mas could give us, if they would, would be enor- 
mously more interesting than even the exhibition of 
their abnormal powers. The same considerations I 
hope will follow in due order, in the case of readers 
whom this volume may have the good fortune to at- 
tract. It has been sometimes argued in my hearing 
that it would have been better if the authors of this 
great new movement of spiritual thought — new for 
us, though so old in one sense — which theosophy 
embodies had furnished us with the results of their 
philosophical thinking without impairing the pure 
dignity of that exalted scheme by mingling it in the 
first instance with sensational displays of thaumatur- 
gic skill. I am not inclined myself to quarrel with 
the order in which events were actually unfolded. 
Miracles, it is quite true, are illogical guarantees for 
theological dogma ; but the manifest possession of 
great faculties and powers in other planes of Nature 
than those on which ordinary conclusions concern- 
ing her processes are formed, does certainly afford 
a presumption that persons so endowed may gather 
observations on those higher planes which it is well 
worth our while to correlate with our own. Mean- 
while I do not put forward the narrative of occult 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. xv 



phenomena, of which this volume largely consists, as 
a statement which in itself constitutes a foundation 
for the very stupendous edifice of doctrines which 
later opportunities enabled me to construct. But I 
know that the experiences I record in this book were 
neither futile nor fruitless in their effects on my own 
development ; and in anticipation of events that may 
contribute in no small degree, in a near future, to 
give a great impetus to theosophic speculation in 
America, I venture to recommend this book with 
special urgency to the American public, in the hope 
that a reflection on their minds of the influence pro- 
duced on my own, by the incidents described, may 
serve to attract a good many fresh explorers into the 
paths of study and meditation, in which I believe 
myself to have gained such inestimable advantage. 

I have not found much to alter in the original 
text of this book, though I am glad to take advan- 
tage of this opportunity to append some notes here 
and there, and amplify some passages. But impor- 
tant additions to its contents have been made from 
time to time, and now especially I am anxious to 
call the attention of American readers to the latest 
of these, which will be found in an appendix. It is 
possible that in America some persons, to whom the 
existence of theosophy as a new school of thought 
is not altogether strange, may have heard of it es- 
pecially in connection with a correspondence which 
has attracted a good deal of attention in the spiritu- 
alistic press. The discussion to which I refer has 
borne reference to a manifest identity of language 
traced between a certain passage in one of my Ma- 
hatma teacher's letters and a similar passage in an 



xvi PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



address delivered a few years ago by an American 
lecturer. The explanation I am now enabled to give 
of the curious circumstances under which this state 
of things arose, constitutes in itself, I venture to 
think, not merely a complete refutation of some un- 
friendly theories which were started to account for 
it, but also affords a very interesting contribution to 
our acquaintanceship with the ways and faculties of 
the Mahatmas. 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



INTKODTJCTION. 

Theee is a school of Philosophy still in existence 
of which modern culture has lost sight. Glimpses 
of it are discernible in the ancient philosophies 
with which all educated men are familiar, but these 
are hardly more intelligible than fragments of for- 
gotten sculpture, — less so, for we comprehend the 
human form, and can give imaginary limbs to a 
torso; but we can give no imaginary meaning to 
the truth coming down to us from Plato or 
Pythagoras, pointing, for those who hold the clue 
to their significance, to the secret knowledge of the 
ancient world. Side lights, nevertheless, may 
enable us to decipher such language, and a very 
rich intellectual reward offers itself to persons who 
are willing to attempt the investigation. 

For, strange as the statement will appear at first 
sight, modern metaphysics, and to a large extent 
modern physical science, have been groping for 
centuries blindly after knowledge which occult 
philosophy has enjoyed in full measure all the while. 
Owing to a train of fortunate circumstances, I have 
1 [1] 



2 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



come to know that this is the case ; I have come 
into some contact with persons who are heirs of a 
greater knowledge concerning the mysteries of 
Nature and humanity than modern culture has yet 
evolved ; and my present wish is to sketch the out- 
lines of this knowledge, to record with exactitude 
the experimental proofs I have obtained that occult 
science invests its adepts with a control of natural 
forces superior to that enjoyed by physicists of the 
ordinary type, and the grounds there are for 
bestowing the most respectful consideration on the 
theories entertained by occult science concerning 
the constitution and destinies of the human soul. 
Of course people in the present day will be slow to 
believe that any knowledge worth considering can 
be found outside the bright focus of Western 
culture. Modern science has accomplished grand 
results by the open method of investigation, and 
is very impatient of the theory that persons who 
ever attained to real knowledge, either in sciences 
or metaphysics, could have been content to hide 
their light under a bushel. So the tendency has 
been to conceive that occult philosophers of old — ■ 
Egyptian priests, Chaldean Magi, Essenes, Gnostics, 
theurgic Iseo-Platonists, and the rest — who kept 
their knowledge secret, must have adopted that 
policy to conceal the fact that they knew very little. 
Mystery can only have been loved by charlatans 
who wished to mystify. The conclusion is pardon- 
able from the modern point of view, but it has given 
rise to an impression in the popular mind that 
the ancient mystics have actually been turned 
inside out, and found to know very little. This 



INTRODUCTION, 



3 



impression is absolutely erroneous. Men of science 
in former ages worked in secret, and instead of 
publishing their discoveries, taught them in secret 
to carefully selected pupils. Their motives for 
adopting that policy are readily intelligible, even if 
the merits of the policy may seem still open to 
discussion. At all events, their teaching has not 
been forgotten ; it has been transmitted by secret 
initiation to men of our own time, and while its 
methods and its practical achievements remain 
secrets in their hands, it is open to any patient and 
earnest student of the question to satisfy himself 
that these methods are of supreme efficacy, and 
these achievements far more admirable than any 
yet standing to the credit of modern science. 

For the secrecy in which these operations have 
been shrouded has never disguised their existence, 
and it is only in our own time that this has been 
forgotten. Formerly at great public ceremonies, 
the initiates displayed the powers with which 
their knowledge of natural laws invested them. 
We carelessly assume that the narratives of such 
displays describe performances of magic : we have 
decided that there is no such thing as magic, there- 
fore the narratives must have been false, the persons 
whom they refer to, impostors. But supposing that 
magic, of old, was simply the science of magi, of 
learned men, there is no magic, in the modern 
sense, left in the matter. And supposing that such 
science — • • m lent. times already the product 

of long ag v -had gone in some directions 

further tl b younger modern science has 

yet reach - , sonable to conclude that some 



4 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



displays in connection with ancient mysteries may 
have been strictly scientific experiments, though 
they sound like displays of magic, and would look 
like displays of magic for us now if they could 
be repeated. 

On that hypothesis modern sagacity applying 
modern knowledge to the subject of ancient mys- 
teries, may be merely modern folly evolving erro- 
neous conclusions from modern ignorance. 

But there is no need to construct hypotheses in 
the matter. The facts are accessible if they are 
sought for in the right way, and the facts are these : 
The wisdom of the ancient world — science and 
religion commingled, physics and metaphysics com- 
bined ; — was a reality, and it still survives. It is 
that which will be spoken of ir\ these pages as 
•Occult Philosophy. It was already a complete 
system of knowledge that had been cultivated in 
secret, and handed down to initiates for ages, before 
its professors performed experiments in public to 
impress the popular mind in Egypt and Greece. 
Adepts of occultism in the present day are capable 
' of perf orming similar experiments, and of exhibiting 
results that prove them immeasurably further 
advanced than ordinary modern science in a com- 
prehension of the forces of Nature. Furthermore, 
they inherit from their great predecessors a science 
which deals not merely with physics, but with the 
constitution and capacities of the human soul and 
spirit. Modern science has di he circu- 

lation of the blood; occult science understands the 
circulation of the life-principK < Modem hysiology 
deals with the body only; occiJtlsm with the soul 



WUCTION. 



5 



as well — not as the stibje <rague, religious 

rhapsodies; but it is an actual eui '°s 
that can be examined in combination with, or apart 
from, those of the body,. 

It is chiefly in the East that occux still 
kept up — in India and in adjacent countries 
in India that I have encountered it ; and this ±^ 
volume is written to describe the experiences X 
have enjoyed, and to retail the knowledge I have 
acquired. 

II. 

My narrative of events must be preceded by 
some further general explanations, or it would be 
unintelligible. The identity of occultism as prac- 
tised in all ages, must be kept in view, to account 
for the magnitude of its organization, and for the 
astounding discovery that secluded Orientals may 
understand more about electricity than Faraday, 
more about physics than Tyndall. The culture of 
Europe has been developed by Europeans for them- 
selves within the last few hundred years. The 
culture of occultists is the growth of vast periods 
long anterior to these, when civilization inhabited 
the East. And during a career which has carried 
occultism in the domain of physical science 
far beyond the point we have reached, physical 
science has merely been an object for occultism of 
secondary importance. Its main strength has been 
devoted to metaphysical inquiry, and to the latent 
psychological faculties in man, faculties which, in 
their development, enable the occultist to obtain 



6 



THE occr 



actual ex concerning the soul's 

condition of <\xtra -corporeal existence. There is 
thw soi»etiiBg ijaore than a mere archaeological 
inrcTesi in the "ientification of the occult system 
with the doctrines of the initiated organizations in all 
ig< d lie world's history, and we are presented by 
hi identification with the key to the philosophy of 
religious development. Occultism is not merely an 
isolated discovery showing humanity to be possessed 
of cei'Eain powers over Nature, which the narrower 
study of Nature from the merely materialistic 
standpoint has failed to develop ; it is an illumina- 
tion cast over all previous spiritual speculation 
worth anything, of a kind which knits together 
some apparently divergent systems. It is to spiri- 
tual philosophy much what Sanscrit was found to 
be to comparative philology ; it is a common stock 
of philosophical roots. Judaism, Christianity, Budd- 
hism and the Egyptian theology are thus brought 
into one family of ideas. Occultism, as it is no' 
new invention, is no specific sect, but the professors 
of no sect can aiford to dispense with the sidelights 
it throws upon the conception of Nature and Man's 
destinies which they may have been induced by 
their own specific faith to form ; occultism, in fact, 
must be recognized by any one who will take the 
trouble to put before his mind clearly the problems 
with which it deals, as a study of the most sublime 
importance to every man who cares to live a life 
worthy of his human rank in creation, and who 
can realize the bearing on ethics of certain know- 
ledge concerning his own survival after death. It 
is one thing to follow the lead of a hazy impression 



INTRODUCTION. 



7 



that a life beyond the grave, if there is one, may be 
somehow benefited by abstinence from wrong-doing 
on this side ; it will clearly be another to realize, if 
that can be shown to be the case, that the life 
beyond the grave must, with the certainty of a sum 
total built up of a series of plus and minus quan- 
tities, be the final expression of the use made of 
opportunities in this. 

I have said that the startling importance of occult 
knowledge turns on the manner in which it affords 
exact and experimental knowledge concerning 
spiritual things which under all other systems must 
remain the subject of speculation or blind religious 
faith. It may be further asserted that occultism 
shows that the harmony and smooth continuity of 
Nature observable in physics extend to those 
operations of Nature that are concerned with the 
phenomena of metaphysical existence. 

Before approaching an exposition of the con- 
clusions concerning the nature of man that occult 
philosophy has reached, it may be worth while to 
meet an objection that may perhaps be raised by the 
reader on the threshold of the subject. How is it 
that conclusions of such great weight have been kept 
'the secret property of a jealous body of initiates ? 
Is it not a law of progress that thith asserts itself 
and courts the free air and light ? Is it reasonable 
to suppose that the greatest of all truths — the 
fundamental basis of truth concerning man and 
JTature — should be afraid to show itself ? With what 
object could the ancient professors of, or proficients 
in, occult philosophy keep the priceless treasures of 
their researches to themselves ? 



3 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



Now, it is no business of mine to defend the 
extreme tenacity with which the proficients in 
occultism have hitherto not only shut out the world 
from the knowledge of their knowledge, but have 
almost left it in ignorance that such knowledge exists. 1 
It is enough here to point out that it would be foolish 
to shut our eyes to a revelation that may now be 
partially conceded, merely because we are piqued at 
the behaviour of those who have been in a position 
to make it before, but have not chosen to do so. 
Nor would it be wiser to say that the reticence of the 
occultists so far discredits anything we may now be 
told about their acquirements. When the sun is 
actually shining it is no use to say that its light 
is discredited by the behaviour of the barometer 
yesterday. I have to deal, in discussing the acquire- 
ments of occultism, with facts that have actually 
taken place, and nothing can discredit what is 
known to be true. No doubt it will be worth while 
later on to examine the motives which have rendered 
the occultists of all ages so profoundly reserved. 
And there may be more to say in justification of the 
course that has been pursued than is visible at 
the first glance. Indeed, the reader will not go 
far in an examination of the nature of the powers 
which proficients in occultism actually possess, with- 
out seeing that it is supremely desirable to keep 
back the practical exercise of such powers from the 
world at large. But it is one thing to deny man- 
kind generally the key which unlocks the mystery 
of occult power ; it is another to withhold the fact 
that there is a mystery to unlock. However, the 
further discussion of that question here would be 

1 See Appendix A. 



INTRODUCTION. 



9 



premature. Enough, for the present to take note 
of the fact that secrecy after all is not complete 
if external students of the subject are enabled to 
learn as much about the mysteries as I shall have 
to tell. Manifestly, there is a great deal more 
behind, but, at all events, a great deal is to be 
learned by inquirers who will set to work in the right 
way, and that which may now be learned is no 
new revelation at last capriciously extended to the 
outer world for the first time. 

In former periods of history, a great deal more 
has been known about the nature of occultism by 
the world at large than is known at this moment to 
the modern West. The bigotry of modern civiliza- 
tion, and not the jealousy of the occultist, is to 
blame if the European races are at this moment 
more generally ignorant of the extent to which 
psychological research has been carried, than the 
Egyptian populace in the past, or the people of 
India in the present day. As regards the latter, 
amongst whom the truth of the theory just sug- 
gested can easily be put to the test, you will find 
the great majority of Hindoos perfectly convinced 
of the truth of the main statements which I am 
about to put forward. They do not generally or 
readily talk about such subjects with Europeans, 
because these are so prone to stupid derision of 
views they do not understand or believe in already. 
The Indian native is very timid in presence of such 
ridicule. But it does not affect in the slightest 
degree the beliefs which rest in his own mind on thes 
fundamental teaching he will always have received, 
and in many cases on odds and ends of experiences 
1* 



IO 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



he may himself have had. The Hindoos are thus 
well aware, as a body, of the fact that there are 
persons who by entire devotion to certain modes 
of life acquire unusual powers in the nature 
of such as Europeans would very erroneously call 
supernatural. They are quite familiar with the notion 
that such persons live secluded lives, and are inac- 
cessible to ordinary curiosity, and that they are none 
the less approachable by fit and determined candi- 
dates for admission to occult training. Ask any 
cultivated Hindoo if he has ever heard of Mahatmas 
and Yog Yidya or occult science, and it is a hundred 
to one that you will find he has — and, unless 
he happens to be one of the hybrid products of 
Anglo-Indian Universities, that he fully believes in 
the reality of the powers ascribed to Yoga. It does 
not follow that he will at once say " Yes" to a 
European asking the question. He will probably 
say just the reverse from the apprehension I have 
spo en of above, but push your questions home and 
you will discover the truth, as I did, for example, 
in the case of a very intelligent English-speaking 
native vakeel in an influential position and v in con- 
stant relations with high European officials, last year. 
At first my new acquaintance met my inquiries as 
to whether he knew anything about these subjects 
with a wooden look of complete ignorance, and an 
explicit denial of any knowledge as to what I meant 
at all. It was not till the second time I saw him 
in private, at my own house, that by degrees it grew 
upon him that I was in earnest, and knew something 
about Yoga myself, and then he quietly opened out 
his real thoughts on the subject, and showed me 



INTRODUCTION. 



11 



that he knew not only perfectly well what I meant 
all along, but was stocked with information con- 
cerning occurrences and phenomena of an occult or 
apparently supernatural order, many of which had 
been observed in his own family and some by 
himself. 

The point of all. this is that Europeans are not 
justified in attributing to the jealousy of the 
occultists the absolute and entire ignorance of all 
that concerns them w T hich pervades the modern 
society of the West. The West has been occupied 
with the business of material progress to the ex- 
clusion of physchological development. Perhaps it 
has done best for the world in confining itself to 
its specialty, but however this may be, it has only 
itself to blame if its concentration of purpose has 
led to something like retrogression in another branch 
of development. 

Jacolliot, a French writer, who has dealt at 
great length with various phases of Spiritism in 
the East, was told by one who must have been an 
adept to judge by the language used : " You have 
studied physical Nature, and you have obtained 
through the laws of Nature marvellous results — 
steam, electricity, &c. &c. For twenty thousand 
years or more we have studied the intellectual 
forces ; we have discovered their laws, and we obtain, 
by making them act alone or in concert with 
matter, phenomena still more astonishing than your 
own." Jacolliot adds : " We have seen things such 
as one does not describe for fear of making his 

readers doubt his intelligence but still we 

have seen them.' 5 



12 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



in. 

Occult phenomena must not be confused with the 
phenomena of spiritualism. The latter, whatever 
they may be, are manifestations which mediums can 
neither control nor understand in a scientific sense. 
The former are achievements of a conscious, liv- 
ing operator comprehending the laws with which he 
works. If these achievements appear miraculous, 
that is the fault of the observer's ignorance. The 
spiritualist knows perfectly well, in spite of ignorant 
mockery on the part of outsiders content to laugh 
without knowing what they are laughing at, that 
all kinds of occurrences distinctly outside the range 
of physical causation do constantly take place for 
inquirers who hunt them with sufficient diligence. 
But he has never been able to do more than frame 
hypotheses in respect to the hidden laws of Nature 
by virtue of which they have been produced. He 
has taken up a certain hypothesis faute de mieux in 
the first instance, and working always on this idea, 
has constructed such an elaborate edifice of theory 
round the facts that he is very reluctant to tolerate 
the interposition of a new hypothesis which will oblige 
him to revise his conclusions in some very important 
particulars. There will be no way of avoiding this 
necessity, however, if he belongs to the order of in- 
quirers who care rather to be sure they have laid 
hold of the truth than to fortify a doctrine they have 
espoused for better or for worse. 

Broadly speaking, there is scarcely one of the 
phenomena of spiritualism that adepts in occultism 
cannot reproduce by the force of their own will, 



INTRODUCTION, 



13 



supplemented by a comprehension of the resources 
of Nature. As will be seen when I come to a 
direct narrative of my own experiences, I have seen 
some of the most familiar phenomena of spiritualism 
produced by purely human agency. The old original 
spirit-rap which introduced the mightier phenomena 
of spiritualism has been manifested for my edifica- 
tion in a countless variety of ways, and under 
conditions which render the hypothesis of any 
spiritual agency in the matter wholly preposterous. 
I have seen flowers fall from the blank ceiling of a 
room under circumstances that gave me a practical 
assurance that no spiritual agency was at work, 
though in a manner as absolutely "supernatural" 
in the sense of being produced without the aid of 
any material appliances, as any of the floral showers 
by which some spiritual mediums are attended. 1 
have over and over again received " direct writing," 
produced on paper in sealed envelopes of my own, 
which was created or precipitated by a living human 
correspondent. I have information, which, though 
second-hand, is very trustworthy, of a great variety 
of other familiar spiritual phenomena produced in 
the same way by human adepts in occultism. But 
it is not my present task to make war on spiritualism. 
The announcements I have to make will, indeed, be 
probably received more readily among spiritualists 
than in the outer circles of the ordinary world, for 
the spiritualists are at all events aware, from their 
own experience, that the orthodox science of the 
day does not know the last word concerning mind 
and matter, while the orthodox outsider stupidly 
clings to a denial of facts when these are of a 



14 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



nature which he foresees himself unable to explain. 
As the facts of spiritualism, though accessible to 
any honest man who goes in search of them, are 
not of a kind which anyone can carry about and 
fling in the faces of pragmatic "sceptics," these 
latter are enabled to keep up their professions of 
incredulity without the foolishness of their position 
being obvious to each other, plain as it is to " the 
initiated." However, although in this way the 
ordinary scientific mind will be reluctant to admit 
either the trustworthiness of my testimony or the 
conceivability of my explanations, it may allay some 
hostile prejudices to make clear at the outset that 
occult science deals with no guess-work concerning 
the post-mortem intervention of human beings in the 
affairs of this world. Its methods are as precise, and 
its mental discipline as rigid, as those of the labora- 
tory or the university lecture-room. Wedding with 
theosophic research, spiritualism itself might guard 
itself from all those hasty inferences which have 
done so much to turn large sections of the cultivated 
people against it, and if they will but take the 
trouble to approach the subject from the point of 
view of occult science, students of physical Nature 
will be enabled at last to handle the phenomena of 
spiritualism freely, to consider them apart from the 
theories to which they have prematurely given rise ; 
and thus relieved of the repugnance they feel for 
them at present, to bring them within the area of 
that which they at last will willingly recognise as 
true scientific generalisations. 



15 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. s 

j 

I. 

The powers with which occultism invests its adepts 
include, to begin with, a control over various forces 
in Nature which ordinary science knows nothing 
about, and by means of which an adept can hold 
conversation with any other adept, whatever intervals 
^on the earth's surface may lie between them. 
This psychological telegraphy is wholly independent 
of all mechanical conditions or appliances whatever. 1 
And the clairvoyant faculties of the adept are so 
perfect and complete that they amount to a species 
of omniscience as regards mundane affairs. The 
body is the prison of the soul for ordinary mortals. 
We can see merely what comes before its windows ; 
we can take cognisance only of what is brought within 
its bars. But the adept has found the key of his 
prison and can emerge from it at pleasure. It is 
no longer a prison for him — merely a dwelling. 
In other words, the adept can project his soul out 
of his body to any place he pleases with the 
rapidity of thought. 

The whole edifice of occultism from basement to 
roof is so utterly strange to ordinary conceptions that 
it is difficult to know how to begin an explanation of 
its contents. How could one describe a calculat- 
ing machine to an audience unfamiliar with the 

1 See Appendix B. 



- ( 

16 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

simplest mechanical contrivances and knowing 
nothing of arithmetic? And the highly cultured 
classes of modern' Europe, as regards the achieve- 
ments of occultism, are, in spite of the perfection of 
their literary scholarship and the exquisite precision 
of their attainments in their own departments of 
science, in the position as regards occultism of 
knowing nothing about the A B C of the subject, 
nothing about the capacities of the soul at all as 
distinguished from the capacities of body and soul 
combined. The occultists for ages have devoted 
themselves to that study chiefly ; they have accom- 
plished results in connexion with it which are abso- 
lutely bewildering in their magnificence; but 
suddenly introduced to some of these, the prosaic 
intelligence is staggered and feels in a world of 
miracle and enchantment. On charts that show 
the stream of history, the nations all intermingle 
more or less, except the Chinese, and that is shown 
coming down in a single river without affluents 
and without branches from out of the clouds of 
time. Suppose that civilized Europe had not 
come into contact with the Chinese till lately, and 
suppose that the Chinamen, very much brighter 
in intelligence than they really are, had developed 
some branch of physical science to the point it 
actually has reached with us$ suppose that 
particular branch had been entirely neglected with 
us, the surprise we should feel at taking up the 
Chinese discoveries in their refined development 
without having gradually grown familiar with their 
small beginnings would be very great. Now this 
is exactly the situation as regards occult science. The 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. 



17 



occultists have been a race apart from an earlier 
period than we can fathom — not a separate race 
physically, not a uniform race physically at all, nor 
a nation in any sense of the word, but a continuous 
association of men of the highest intelligence linked 
together by a bond stronger than any other tie of 
which mankind has experience, and carrying on with 
la perfect continuity of purpose the * studies and ' 
traditions and mysteries of self -development handed 
down to them by their predecessors. All this time 
the stream of civilization, on the foremost waves of 
which the culture of modern Europe is floating, has 
been wholly and absolutely neglectful of the one 
study with which the occultists have been solely 
engaged. r ~ What wonder that the two lines of 
civilization have diverged so far apart that their 
forms are now entirely unlike each other. It 
remains to be seen whether this attempt to reintro- 
duce the long-estranged cousins will be tolerated or 
treated as an impudent attempt to pass off an 
impostor as a relation. 

I have said that the occultist can project his soul 
from his body. As an incidental discovery, it will 
be observed, he has thus ascertained beyond all 
shadow of doubt that he really has got a soul. A 
comparison of myths has sometimes been called the 
science of religion. If there can really be a science 
of religion- it must necessarily be occultism. On 
the surface, perhaps, it may not be obvious that 
religious truth must necessarily open out more 
completely to the soul as temporarily loosened from 
the body, than to the soul as taking cognisance of 
ideas through the medium of the physical senses. 



I& 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



But to ascend into a realm of immateriality, where 
cognition becomes a process of pure perception 
while the intellectual faculties are in full play and 
centred in the immaterial man, must manifestly 
be conducive to an enlarged comprehension of 
religious truth. 

I have just spoken of the " immaterial man " as 
distinguished from the body of the physical senses ; 
but, so complex is the statement I have to make, 
that I must np sooner induce the reader to tolerate 
the phrase than I must reject it for the future *as 
inaccurate. Occult philosophy has ascertained 
that the inner ethereal self, which is the man as 
distinguished from his body, is itself the envelope of 
something more ethereal still — is itself, in a subtle 
sense of the term, material. 

The majority of civilized people believe that man 
has a soul which will somehow survive the dissolu- 
tion of the body ; but they have to confess that 
they do not know very much about it. A good 
many of the most highly civilized, have grave 
doubts on the subject, and some think that researches 
in physics which have suggested the notion that 
even thought may be a mode of motion, tend to 
establish the strong probability of the hypothesis 
that when the life of the body is destroyed nothing 
else survives. Occult philosophy does not speculate 
about the matter at all ; it knows the state of the 
facts. 

\St. Paul, who was an occultist, speaks of man 
as constituted of body, soul, and spirit. The 
distinction is one that hardly tits in with the 
theory, that when a man dies his soul is translated 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. 19 

to heaven or hell for ever. What then becomes 
of the spirit, and what is the spirit as different from 
the soul, on the ordinary hypothesis ? Orthodox 
thinkers work out each some theory on the subject 
for himself. Either that the soul is the seat of the 
emotions and the spirit of the , intellectual faculties, 
or vice versa. No one can put such conjectures 
on a solid foundation, not even on the basis of an 
alleged revelation. But St. Paul was not indulging 
in vague fancies when he made use of the expres- 
sion quoted. The spirit he wa^ referring to may 
be described as the soul of the soul. With that 
for the moment we need not be concerned. The 
important point which occultism brings out is that 
the soul of man, while something enormously 
- subtler and more ethereal and more lasting than 
the body, is itself a material reality. Not material 
as chemistry understands matter, but as physical 
science en Hoc might understand it if the tentaculse 
of each branch of science were to grow more 
sensitive and were to work more in harmony. It 
is no denial of the materiality of any hypothetical 
substance to say that one cannot determine its 
atomic weight and its affinities. The ether that 
transmits light is held to be material by anyone 
who holds it to exist at all, but there is a gulf of 
difference between it and the thinnest of the gases. 
You do not always approach a scientific truth from 
the same direction. You may perceive some 
directly; you have to infer others indirectly; but 
these latter may not on that account be the less 
certain. The materiality of ether is inferable 
from the behaviour of light : the materiality of the 



20 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

soul may be inferab e from its subjection to forces 
A mesmeric inflwnee is & 'force emanating from 
certain physical cl : eristics of the mesmerist. 
It impinges on the v.. * f the subject at a distance 
and produces an eflee; perceptible to him, demon- 
strable to others. . Of course v this is an illustration 
and no proof. I must set forth as well as I am 
able — and that can but be very imperfectly — the 
discoveries of occultism 'without at first attempting 
the establishment by proof of each part of these 
discoveries. Further on, I shall be able to prove 
some parts at any rate, and others will then be 
recognized as indirectly established, too. 

The soul is material, and inheres in the 
ordinarily more grossly material body ; and it is 
this condition of things which enables the occultist 
to speak positively on the subject, for he can 
satisfy himself at one coup that there is such a 
thing as a soul, and that it is material in its nature, 
by dissociating it from the body under some con- 
ditions, and restoring it again. The occultist can 
even do this sometimes with other souls ; his 
primary achievement, however, is to do so with his 
own. When I say that the occultist foiows he has 
a soul I refer to this power. Pie knows it just 
as another Hnan knows he has a great coat. He 
can put it from him, and render it manifest as 
something separate from himself. But remember 
that to him, when the separation is effected, he is 
the soul and the thing put off is the body. And 
this is to attain nothing less than absolute certainty 
about the great problem of survival after death. 
The adept does not rely on faith, or on metaphysical 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. 

speculation, in regard to the possibilities of ms 
existence apart from the body. He experiences 
such an existence whenever he pleases, and although 
it may be allowed that the mere art of emancipating 
himself temporarily from the body would not 
necessarily inform him concerning his ultimate 
destinies after that emancipation should be final at 
death, it gives him, at all events, exact knowledge 
concerning the conditions under which he will start 
on his journey in the next world. While his body 
lives, his soul is, so to speak, a captive balloon 
(though with a very long, elastic, and imponderable 
cable). Captive ascents will not necessarily tell 
him whether the balloon will float when at last the 
machinery below breaks up, and he finds himself 
altogether adrift; but it is something to be an 
aeronaut already, before the journey begins, and to 
know definitely, as I said before, that there are 
such things as balloons, for certain emergencies, to 
sail in. / 

There would be infinite grandeur in the faculty 
I have described alone, supposing that were the end 
of adeptshjp : but instead of being the end, it is 
more like the beginning. The seemingly magic- 
feats which the adepts in occultism have the power 
to perform, are accomplished, I am given to 
understand, by means of familiarity with a force in 
nature which is referred to in Sanscrit writings- as 
akaz. Western science has done much in dis- 
covering some of the properties and powers of 
electricity. Occult science, ages before, had done 
much more in discovering the properties and 
powers of akaz. In " The Coming Kace," the lato 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



Lord Lytton, whose connexion with occultism 
appears to have been closer than the world generally 
has yet realized, gives a fantastic and imaginative 
account of the wonders achieved in the world to 
which his hero penetrates, by means of Vril. In 
writing of Yril, Lord Lytton has clearly been poet- 
ising akaz* " The Coming Race " is described as a 
people entirely unlike adepts in many essential 
particulars — as a complete nation, for one thing, 
of men and women all equally handling the powers, 
even from childhood, which — or some of which 
among others not described — the adepts have con- 
quered. This is a mere fairy-tale, founded on the 
achievements of occultism. But no one who has 
made a study of the latter can fail to see, can fail 
to recognise with a conviction amounting to cer- 
tainty, that the author of " The Coming Race " 
. must have been familiar with the leading ideas of 
occultism, perhaps with a great deal more. The 
same evidence is afforded by Lord Lyttoir s other 
novels of mystery, " Zanoni," and " The Strange 
Story." In u Zanoni," the sublime personage in the 
background, Mejnour, is intended plainly to be a 
great adept of Eastern occultism, exactly like those 
of whom I have to speak. It is difficult to know 
why in this case, where Lord Lytton has manifestly 
intended to adhere much more closely to the real * 
facts of occultism than in u The Coming Race," he * 
should have represented Mejnour as a solitary / t 
survivor of the Rosicrucian fraternity. The guar- 
dians of occult science are content to be a small 
body as compared with the tremendous importance 
of the knowledge which they save from perishing, 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. 



23 



but they have never allowed their numbers to 
diminish to the extent of being in any danger of 
ceasing to exist as an organized body on earth. It 
is difficult again to understand why Lord Lytton, 
having learned so much as he certainly did, should 
have been content to use up his information merely 
as an ornament of fiction, instead of giving it to the 
world in a form which should claim more serious 
consideration. At all events, prosaic people will 
argue to that effect ; but it is not impossible that 
Lord Lytton himself had become, through long 
study of the subject, so permeated with the love 
of mystery which inheres in the occult mind 
apparently, that he preferred to throw out his 
information in a veiled and mystic shape, so that it 
would be intelligible to readers in sympathy with 
himself, and would blow unnoticed past the com- 
monplace understanding without awakening the 
angry rejection which these pages, for example, 
if they are destined to attract any notice at all, 
will assuredly encounter at the hands of, bigots in 
science, religion, and the great philosophy of the 
commonplace. 

Akaz, be it then understood, is a force for which 
we have no name, and in reference to which we 
have no experience to guide us to a conception of 
its nature. One can only grasp at the idea re- 
quired by conceiving that it is as much more po- 
tent, subtle, and extraordinary an agent than elec- 
tricity, as electricity is superior in subtlety and 
variegated efficiency to steam. It is through his 
acquaintance with the properties of this force, that 
the adept can accomplish the physical phenomena, 



24 - THE OCCULT WORLD. 



which I shall presently be able to show are within 
his reach, besides others of far greater magnifi- 
cence. 

n. 

Who are the adepts who handle the tremendous 
forces of which I speak ? There is reason to believe 
that such adepts have existed in all historic ages, 
and there are such adepts in India at this moment, 
or in adjacent countries. The identity of the 
knowledge they have inherited, with that of ancient 
initiates in occultism, follows irresistibly from an 
examination of the views they hold and the facul- 
ties they exercise. The conclusion has to be worked 
out from a mass of literary evidence, and it will be 
enough to state it for the moment, pointing out the 
proper channels of research in the matter after- 
wards. For the present let us consider the position 
of the adepts as they now exist, or, to use the desig- 
nation more generally employed in India, of "the 
Mahatmas." 1 

They constitute a Brotherhood, or Secret Asso- 
ciation, which ramifies all over the East, but the 
principal seat of which for the present I gather 
to be in Tibet. But India has not yet been de- 
serted by the adepts, and from that country they 
still receive many recruits. For the great fraternity 
is at once the least and the most exclusive organ- 
ization in the world, and fresh recruits from any 
race or country are welcome, provided they possess 
the needed qualifications. The door, as I have 
been told by one who is himself an adept, is always 
open to the right man who knocks, but the road 

* Mahatma = Great Soul, or Great Spirit, derived from Maha and 

At inn. 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPTS. 25 



that has to be travelled before the door is reached 
is one which none but very determined travellers 
can hope to pass. It is manifestly impossible that 
I can describe its perils in any but very general 
terms, but it is not necessary to have learned any 
secrets of initiation to understand the character of 
the training through which a neophyte must pass 
before he attains the dignity of a proficient iii 
occultism. The adept is not made : he becomes, 
as I have been constantly assured, and the process 
of becoming is mainly in his own hands. 

Never, I believe, in less than seven years from 
the time at which a candidate for initiation is 
accepted as a probationer, is he ever admitted to the 
very first of the ordeals, whatever they may be, w T hich 
bar the way to the earliest decrees of occultism, 
and . there is no security for him that the seven 
years may not be extended ad libitum. He has 
no security that he will ever be admitted to any 
initiation whatever. Nor is this appalling uncer- 
tainty, which would alone deter most Europeans, 
however keen upon the subject intellectually, from 
attempting to advance, themselves, into the domain 
of occultism, maintained from the mere caprice of 
a despotic society, coquetting, so to speak, with the 
eagerness of its wooers. The trials through which 
the neophyte has to pass are no fantastic mockeries, 
or mimicries of awful peril. Nor, do I take it, 
are they artificial barriers set up by the masters of 
occultism, to try the nerve of their pupils, as a 
riding-master might put up fences in his school. 
It is inherent in the nature of the science that has 
to be explored, that its revelations shall stagger the 



26 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



reason and try the most resolute courage. It is in 
his own interest that the candidate's character and 
fixity of purpose, and perhaps his physical and 
mental attributes, are tested and watched with 
infinite care and patience in the first instance, before 
he is allowed to take the final plunge into the sea 
of strange experiences through which he must swim 
with the strength of his own right arm, or perish. 

As to what may be the nature of the trials that 
await him during the period of his development, it 
will be obvious that I can have no accurate know- 
ledge, and conjectures based on fragmentary revela- 
tions picked up here and there are Hot worth 
recording, but as for the nature of the life led by 
the mere candidate for admission as a neophyte it 
will be equally plain that no secret is involved. 
The ultimate development of the adept requires 
amongst other things a life of absolute physical 
purity, and the candidate must, from the beginning, 
give practical evidence of his willingness to adopt 
this. He must, that is to say, for all the years of 
his probation, be perfectly chaste, perfectly abste- 
mious, and indifferent to physical luxury of every 
sort. This regimen does not involve any fantastic 
discipline or obtrusive asceticism, nor withdrawal 
from the world. There would be nothing to pre- 
vent a gentleman in ordinary society from being in 
some of the preliminary stages of training for occult 
candidature without anybody about him being the 
wiser. For true occultism, the sublime achievement 
of the real adept, is not attained through the loath- 
some asceticism of the ordinary . Indian fakeer, the 
yogi of the woods and wilds, whose dirt accumulates 



OCCULTISM AND ITS ADEPU 

with his sanctity — of the fanatic who fasten^ 
Jiooks into his flesh, or holds up an arm until it * 
withered. An imperfect knowledge of some of the 
external facts of Indian occultism will often lead to 
a misunderstanding on this point. 

Yog vidya is the Indian name for occult science, 
and it is easy to learn a good deal more than is 
worth, learning about the practices of some mis- 
guided enthusiasts who cultivate some of its inferior 
branches by means of mere physical exercises. Prop- 
erly speaking, this physical development is called 
Hatta yog, while the loftier sort, which is approached 
by the discipline of the mind, and which leads to the 
high altitudes of occultism, is called Raya yog. No 
person whom a real occultist would ever think of as 
an adept, has acquired his powers by means of the 
laborious and puerile exercises of the Hatta yog. I 
do not mean to say that these inferior exercises are 
altogether futile. They do invest the person who 
pursues them with some abnormal faculties and pow- 
ers. Many treatises have been written to describe 
them, and many people who have lived in India will 
be able to relate curious experiences they have had 
with proficients in this extraordinary craft. I do not 
wish to fill these pages with tales of wonder that I 
have had no means of sifting, or it would be easy to 
collect examples; but the point to insist on here is 
that no story anyone can have heard or read which 
seems to put an ignoble, or petty, or low-minded as- 
pect on Indian yogeeism can have any application to 
the ethereal yogeeism which is called Raya yog, and 
which leads to the awful heights of true adeptship. 



28 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Secret, as the occult organization has always 
remained, there is a good deal more to be learned 
concerning the philosophical views which it has 
preserved or acquired, than might be supposed at 
the first glance. As my own experience when fully 
described will show, the 'great adepts of occultism 
themselves have no repugnance to the dissemination 
of their religious philosophy so far as a world un- 
trained as ours is in pure psychological investigation 
can profit by such teaching. 'Nor even are they 
unconquerably averse to the occasional manifestation 
of those superior powers over the forces of Nature 
to which their extraordinary researches have led 
them. The many apparently miraculous phenomena 
which I have witnessed through occult agency 
could never have been exhibited if the general rule 
which precludes the Brothers from the exhibition of 
their powers to uninitiated persons were absolute. 
As a general rule, indeed, the display of any occult 
phenomenon for the purpose of exciting the wonder 
and admiration of beholders is strictly forbidden. 
And indeed I should imagine that such prohibition 
is absolute if there is no higher purpose involved. 
But it is plain that with a purely philanthropic 
desire to spread the credit of a philosophical system 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOC/ETZ". 29 



which is ennobling in its character, the Brothers may 
sometimes wisely permit the display of abnormal 
phenomena when the minds to which such an appeal 
is made may be likely to rise from the appreciation 
of the wonder to a befitting respect for the philosophy 
which it accredits. And the history of the Theo- 
sophical Society has been an expansion of this idea. 
That history has been a chequered one, because the 
phenomena that have been displayed have often 
failed of their effect, have sometimes become the 
subject of a premature publicity, and have brought 
down on the study of occult philosophy as ' regarded 
from the point of view of the outer world, and on 
the devoted persons who have been chiefly identified 
with its encouragement by means of the Theo- 
sophical Society, a great deal of stupid ridicule and 
some malevolent persecution. It may be asked why 
the Brothers, if they are really the great and all- 
powerful persons I represent them, have permitted 
indiscretions of the kind referred to, but the inquiry 
is not so embarrassing as it may seem at the first 
glance. If the picture of the Brothers that I have 
sndeavoured to present to the reader has been 
appreciated rightly, it will show them less accurately 
qualified, in spite of their powers, than persons of 
lesser occult development, to carry on any under- 
taking which involves direct relations with a multi- 
plicity of ordinary people in the common-place 
world. I gather the primary purpose of the 
Brotherhood to be something very unlike the task 
I am engaged in, for example, at this moment — the 
endeavour to convince the public generally that 
there really are faculties latent in humanity capable 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



of such extraordinary development, that they carry 
us at a bound to an immense distance beyond the 
dreams of physical science in reference to the com- 
prehension of Nature, and at the same time afford 
us positive testimony concerning the constitution 
and destinies of the human soul. That is a task on 
which it is reasonable to suppose the Brothers would 
cast a sympathetic glance, but it will be obvious on 
a moment's reflection, that their primary duty must 
be to keep alive the actuality of that knowledge, 
and of those powers concerning which I am merely 
giving some shadowy account. If the Brothers 
were to employ themselves on the large, rough 
business of hacking away at the incredulity of a 
stolid multitude, at the acrimonious incredulity of 
the materialistic phalanx, at the terrified and indig- 
nant incredulity of the orthodox religious world, it 
is conceivable that they might — -propter vitam vivendi 
jperdere causas — suffer the occult science itself to 
decay for the sake of persuading mankind that it 
did really exist. Of course it might be suggested 
that division of labour might be possible in occultism 
as in everything else, and that some adepts qualified 
for the work might be told off for the purpose of 
breaking down the incredulity of modern science, 
while the others would carry on the primary duties 
of their career in their own beloved seclusion. But 
a suggestion of this kind, however practical it may 
sound to a practical world, would probably present 
itself as eminently unpractical to the true mystic. 
To begin with, an aspirant for occult honours does 
not go through the tremendous and prolonged effort 
required to win him success, in order at th< 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIE , 



3i 



all things to embrace a life in the midtt of the 
ordinary world, which on the hypothesis of his sik 
in occultism must necessarily be repugnant to him in 
the extreme. Probably there is not one real adept who 
does not look with greater aversion and repugnance 
on any life except a life of seclusion, than we of the 
outer world would look on the notion ( of being 
buried alive in a remote mountain fastness where 
no foot or voice from the outer world could pene- 
trate. I shall very soon be able to show that the 
love of seclusion, inherent in adeptship, does not 
imply a mind vacant of the knowledge of European 
culture and manners. It is, on the contrary, com- 
patible with an amount of European culture and 
experience that people acquainted merely with the 
commonplace aspects of Eastern life will be sur- 
prised to find possible in the case of a man of 
Oriental birth. Now, the imaginary adept told off 
on the suggestion I am examining, to show the 
scientific world that there are realms of knowledge it 
has not yet explored and faculties attainable to 
man that it has not yet dreamed of possessing, 
would have to be either appointed to discharge that 
duty, or to volunteer for it. In the one case we 
have to assume that the occult fraternity is despotic 
in its treatment of its members in a . manner which 
all my observation leads me to believe it certainly 
is not ; in the other, we have to suppose some adept 
making a voluntary sacrifice of what he regards as 
not only the most agreeable but also the higher 
life — for what ? for the sake , of accomplishing a 
task which he does not regard as of very great 
importance — relatively, at any rate, to that other 



32 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

in which he may take a part — the perpetuation 

id perhaps the development of the great science 
if. But I do not care to follow the argument 

ly further, because it will come on for special 
treatment in a different way presently. Enough 
for the moment to indicate that there are considera- 
tions against the adoption of that method of per- 
suasion which, as far as the judgment of ordinary 
people would go, would seem the best suited to the 
introduction of occult truths to modern intelligence. 

And these considerations appear to have prompted 
the acceptance by the Brothers, of the Theosophical 
Society as a more or less imperfect, but still the 
best available agency for the performance of a piece 
of work, in which, without being actually prepared 
to enter on it themselves, they nevertheless take a 
cordial interest. 

And what are the peculiar conditions which 
render the Theosophical Society, the organization 
and management of which have been faulty in many 
ways, the best agency hitherto available for the 
propagation of occult truths ? The zeal and quali- 
fications of its founder, Madame Blavatsky, give the 
explanation required. It is obvious that to give 
any countenance or support at all to a society con- 
cerned with the promulgation of occult philosophy, 
it was necessary for the Brothers to be in occult 
communication with it in some way or other. For 
it must be remembered that though it may seem to 
us a very amazing and impossible thing to sit still at 
home and impress our thoughts upon the mind of a 
distant friend by an effort of will, a Brother living 
in an unknown Himalayan reti al La not nly abk 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 



to converse as freely as lie likes with any of his 
friends who are initiates like himself, in whatever 
part of the world they may happen to be, but would 

; find any other modes of communication, such as 
those with which the crawling faculties of the outer 
world have to be content, simply intolerable in 
their tedium and inefficacy. Besides, he must, to 
be able to afford assistance to any society having its 
sphere of operations among people in the world, be 
able to hear from it with the same facility that he 
can send communications to it. So there must be 
an initiate at the^ other end of the line. Finally, 
the occult rules evidently require this last-named 
condition, or what amounts to the same thing, 
forbid arrangements which can only be avoided on 
this condition. 

Now, Madame Blavatsky is an initiate — is an 
adept to the extent of possessing this magnificent 

^ power of psychological telegraphy with her occult 
friends. That she has stopped short of that further 
development in adeptship that would have tided her 
right over the boundary between this and the occult 
world altogether, is the circumstance which has 
rendered her assumption of the task with which the 
Theosophical Society is concerned compatible with 
the considerations pointed out above as operating 
to prevent the assumption of such a duty by a full 
adept. As regards the supremely essential charac- 
teristic, she has, in fact, been exactly suited to the 
emergency. How it came to pass that her occult 
training carried her as far as it did and no further, 
is a question into w T hich it is fruitless to inquire, 
because the answer would manifestly entail explana- 
2* 



34 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



tions which would impinge too closely on the 
secrets of initiation which are never disclosed under 
any circumstances whatever. After all she is a 
woman, — though her powerful mind, widely if erra- 
tically cultivated, and perfectly dauntless courage 
proved among other ways on the battle-field, but 
more than by any bravery with bullets, by her 
occult initiation, renders the name, connoting what 
it ordinarily does, rather absurd in application to 
her,— and this has, perhaps, barred her from the 
highest degrees in occultism that she might other- 
wise have attained. At all events, after a course of 
occult study carried on for seven years in a Himalayan 
retreat, and crowning a devotion to occult pursuits 
extending over five-and-thirty or forty years,. 
Madame Blavatsky reappeared in the world, dazed, 
as she met ordinary people going about in common- 
place, benighted ignorance concerning the wonders of 
occult science, at the mere thought of the stupendous 
gulf of experience that separated her from them. 
She could hardly at first bear to associate with 
them, for thinking of all she knew that they did not 
know and that she was bound not to reveal. Any 
one can understand the burden of a great secret, but 
the burden of such a secret as occultism, and the 
burden of great powers only conferred on condition 
that their exercise should be very strictly circum- 
scribed by rule, must have been trying indeed. 

Circumstances — or to put the matter more 
plainly, the guidance of friends from whom, though 
she had left them behind in the Himalayas on her 
return to Europe, she was no longer in danger of 
separation, as we understand the term, induced her 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 35 



to visit America, and there, assisted by some other 
persons whose interest in the subject was kindled 
by occasional manifestations of her extraordinary 
powers, and notably by Colonel Olcott, its life- 
devoted President, she founded the Theosophical 
Society, the objects of which, as originally defined, 
were to explore the latent psychological powers of 
man, and the ancient Oriental literature in which 
the clue to these may be hidden, and in which the 
philosophy of occult science may be partly discovered. 

The Society took root readily in America, while 
branches were also formed in England and else- 
where ; but, leaving these to take care of themselves, 
Madame Blavatsky ultimately returned to India, to 
establish the Society there among the natives, 
from whose natural hereditary sympathies with 
mysticism it w T as reasonable to expect an ardent 
sympathy with a psychological enterprise which not 
only appealed to their intuitive belief in the reality 
of yog vidya, but also to theii- best patriotism, by 
exhibiting India as the fountain-head of the highest 
if the least known and the most secluded culture 
in the world. 

Here, however, began the practical blunders in 
the management of the Theosophical Society which 
led to the incidents referred to above, as having 
given it, so far, a chequered career, Madame 
Blavatsky, to begin with, was wholly unfamiliar 
with the everyday side of Indian life, her previous 
visits having brought her only into contact with 
groups of people utterly unconnected with the 
current social system and characteristics of the 
country. Nor could she have undertaken a worse 



36 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



preparation for Indian life than that supplied by a 
residence of some years in the United States. 
This sent her out to India unfurnished with the 
recommendations which she could readily have 
obtained, if she had spent the time just referred to 
in England, and left her unprovided with informa- 
tion it was highly important for her to possess con- 
cerning the true character of the British ruling 
classes of India and their relations with the people. 

The consequence was that Mine. Blavatsky, on her 
first arrival in India, adopted an attitude of obtrusive 
sympathy with the natives of the soil as compared 
with the Europeans, seeking their society in a manner 
which, coupled with the fact that she made none of 
the usual advances to European society, and with her 
manifestly Russian name, had the effect not un- 
naturally of rendering her suspecte to the rather 
clumsy organization which in India attempts to 
combine, with sundry others, the functions of a 
political police. These suspicions, it is true, were 
allayed almost as soon as they were conceived, but 
not before Madame Blavatzky had been made for a 
short time the object of an espionage so awkward 
that it became grossly obvious to herself and roused 
her indignation to fever heat. To a more phlegmatic 
nature the incident would have been little more 
than amusing, but all accidents combined to de- 
velop trouble. A Russian by birth, though 
naturalized in the United States, Madame Blavatzky 
is probably more sensitive than an English woman 
less experienced in political espionage would be to 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



the insult involved in being taken for a spy. Then 
the inner consciousness of having, for enthusiasm in 
the purely intellectual or spiritual enterprise to 
which she had devoted her life, renounced the place 
in society to which her distinguished birth and 
family naturally entitled her, probably intensified 
the bitterness of her indignation, at finding the 
sacrifice not only unappreciated, but turned against 
her, and regarded as justifying a foul suspicion. 
At all events, the circumstances acting on an ex- 
citable temperament led her to make public protests 
which caused it to be widely known by natives as 
well as by Europeans, that she had been looked at 
askance by Government authorities. And this idea 
for a time impeded the success of her work. 
Nothing can be done in India without a European 
impulse in the beginning ; at all events, it handicaps 
any enterprise frightfully to be without such an 
impulse if native co-operation is required. Not that 
the Theosophical Society failed to get members. 
The natives were flattered at the attitude towards 
them taken up by their new " European " friends, 
as Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were no 
doubt generally regarded in spite of their American 
nationality, and showed a shallow eagerness to be- 
come Theosophists. But their ardour did not 
always prove durable, and in some few cases they 
showed a lamentable want of earnestness by break- 
ing away from the Society altogether. 

Meanwhile, Madame Blavatsky began to make 
friends amongst the Europeans, and in 1880 visited 
Simla, where she began late in the day to approach 
her work from the right direction. Again, however, 



ft 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



some mistakes were made which have retarded the 
establishment of the Theosophical Society, as far as 
India is concerned, on the dignified footing that it 
ought to occupy. A great many wonderful pheno- 
mena were manifested in the presence at various 
times of a great many people; but proper safe- 
guards were not taken to avert the great danger 
that must always attend such a method of recom- 
mending occult science to public notice. It is 
beyond dispute that phenomena, exhibited under 
thoroughly satisfactory conditions to persons intel- 
ligent enough to comprehend their significance, 
create an effect in awakening a thirst for the study 
of occult philosophy that no other appreal can 
produce. But it is equally true, though at the first 
glance this may not be so apparent, that to minds 
quite unprepared by previous training to grasp the 
operation of occult forces, the most perfectly unim- 
peachable phenomenon will be received rather as 
an insult to the understanding than as a proof of the 
operation of occult power. This is especially the 
case with persons of merely average intelligence, 
whose faculties cannot stand the shock of a sudden 
appeal to an entirely new set of ideas. The strain 
is too great; the new chain of reasoning breaks, 
and the commonplace observer of abnormal occur- 
rences reverts to his original frame of stolid 
incredulity, perfectly unaware of the fact that a 
revelation of priceless intellectual importance lias 
been offered to him and lias been misunderstood. 
Nothing is commoner than to hear people say : " I 
can't believe in the reality of a phenomenal occur- 
rence unless I see it for myself. Show it me and 



THE THECS0PB1CAL SuCJETY. 



39 



I shall believe in it, but not till then." Many 
people who say this are quite mistaken as to what 
they would believe if the occurrence were shown to 
them. I have over and over again seen phenomena 
of an absolutely genuine nature pass before the 
•£yes of people unused to investigating occurrences 
of the kind, and leave no impression behind beyond 
an irritated conviction that they were somehow 
being taken in. Just this happened in some con- 
spicuous instances at Simla, and it is needless to say 
that many as were the phenomena that Madame 
Blavatsky produced, or was instrumental in pro- 
ducing, during the visit to which I am referring, 
the number of people in the place who had no oppor- 
tunity of seeing them was considerably greater 
than that of the witnesses. And for these, as a 
rule, the whole series of incidents presented itself 
simply as an imposition. It was nothing to the 
purpose for the holders of this theory that there 
was a glaring absence from the whole business of 
any motive for imposture, that a considerable 
group of persons whose testimony and capacity 
would never have been impugned had any other 
matter been under discussion, were emphatic in 
their declarations as to the complete reality of the 
phenomena that had been displayed. The common- 
place mind could not assimilate the idea that it 
was face to face with a new revelation in Nature, 
and any hypothesis, no matter how absurd and illo- 
gical in its details, was preferable for the majority 
to the simple grandeur of the truth. 

On the whole, therefore, as Madame Blavatsky 
became a celebrity in India, her relations with 



4 o 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



European society were intensified. She made 
many friends, and secured some ardent converts to 
a belief in the reality of occult powers ; but she 
became the innocent object of bitter animosity on 
the part of some other acquaintances, who, unable 
to assimilate what they saw in her presence, took 
up an attitude of disbelief, which deepened into 
positive enmity as the whole subject became enve- 
loped in a cloud of more or less excited con- 
troversy. 

And it is needless to say that many of the news- 
papers made great capital out of the whole situation 
ridiculing Madame Blavatsky's dupes, and twisting 
every bit of information that came out about her 
phenomena into tha most ludicrous shape it 
could be made to assume. Mockery of that sort 
was naturally expected by English friends who 
avowed their belief in the reality of Madame 
Blavatsky's powers, and probably never gave one 
of them a moment's serious annoyance. But for 
the over-sensitive and excitable person chiefly con- 
cerned they were indescribably tormenting, and 
eventually it grew doubtful whether her patience 
would stand the strain put upon it ; whether she 
would not relinquish altogether the ungrateful task 
of inducing the world at large to accept the good 
gifts which she had devoted her life to offering 
them. Happily, so far, no catastrophe lias ensued; 
but no history of Columbus in chains for discover- 
ing a new world, or Galileo in prison for an- 
nouncing the true principles of astronomy, is more 
remarkable for those who know all the bearings of 
the situation in India, as regards the Theosophical 



THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



Society, than the sight of Madam Blavatsky, 
slandered and ridiculed by most of the Anglo- 
Indian papers, and spoken of as a charlatan by the 
commonplace crowd, in return for having freely 
offered them some of the wonderful fruits — as much 
as the rules of the great occult association permit 
her to offer — of the life-long struggle in which she 
has conquered her extraordinary knowledge. 

In spite of all this, meanwhile, the Theosophical 
Society remains the one organization which sup- 
plies to inquirers who thirst for occult knowledge 
a link of communication, however slight, with the 
great fraternity in the background which takes • 
an interest in its progress, and is accessible to its 
founder. 



> 



> 



42 



FIEST OCCULT EXPEEIENCES. 



It has been through my connection with the Theo- 
sophical Society and my acquaintance with Madame 
Blavatsky that I have obtained experiences in 
connection with occultism, which have prompted 
me to undertake my present task. The first pro- 
blem I had to solve was whether Madame Blavatsky 
really did, as I heard, possess the power of pro- 
ducing abnormal phenomena. And it may be 
imagined that, on the assumption of the reality of 
her phenomena, nothing would have been simpler 
than to obtain such satisfaction when once I had 
formed her acquaintance. It is, however, an illus- 
tration of the embarrassments which surround all 
inquiries of this nature — embarrassments with 
which so many people grow impatient, to the end 
that they cast inquiry altogether aside and remain 
wholly ignorant of the truth for the rest of their 
lives — that although on the first occasion of my 
making Madame Blavatsky's acquaintance she 
became a guest at my house at Allahabad and 
remained there for six weeks, the harvest of satis- 
faction I was enabled to obtain during this time 
was exceedingly small. Of course I heard a great 
deal from her during the time mentioned about 
occultism and the Brothers, but while she was 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 43 



most anxious that I should understand the situation 
thoroughly, and I was most anxious to get at the 
truth, the difficulties to be overcome were almost 
insuperable. For the Brothers, as already de- 
scribed, have an unconquerable objection to showing 
off. That the person who wishes them to show off 
is an earnest seeker of truth, and not governed by 
mere idle curiosity, is nothing to the purpose. 
They do not want to attract candidates for initia- 
tion by an exhibition of wonders. Wonders 
have a very spirit-stirring effect on the history of 
every religion founded on miracles, but oc- 
cultism is not a pursuit which people can safely 
take up in obedience to the impulse of enthusiasm 
created by witnessing a display of extraordinary 
power. There is no absolute rule to forbid the 
exhibition of powers in presence of the outsider; 
but it is clearly disapproved of by the higher 
authorities of occultism on principle, and it is 
practically impossible for less exalted proficients to 
go against this disapproval. It was only the very 
slightest of all imaginable phenomena that, during 
her first visit to my house, Madame Blavatsky was 
thus permitted to exhibit freely. She was allowed 
to show that "raps" like those which spiritualists 
attribute to spirit agency, could be produced at 
will. This was something, and faute de mieux we 
paid great attention to raps, 

Spiritualists are aware that when groups of 
people sit round a table and put their hands upon 
it, they will, if a "medium" be present, generally 
hear little knocks which respond to questions and 
spell out messages. The large outer circle of 



44 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

persons who do not believe in spiritualism are fain 
to imagine that all the millions who do, are duped 
as regards this impression. It must sometimes be 
troublesome for them to account for the wide de- 
velopment of the delusion, but any theory, they 
think, is preferable to admitting the possibility that 
the spirits of deceased persons can communicate in 
this way ; or, if they take the scientific view of the 
matter, that a physical effect, however slight, can be 
produced without a physical cause. Such persons 
ought to welcome the explanations I am now 
giving, tending as these do to show that the 
theory of universal self-deception as regards spirit- 
rapping, which must be rather an awkward theory 
for any one but a ludicrously conceited objector 
to hold, is not the only one by means of which the 
asserted facts of spiritualism — those with which we 
are now dealing at all events — can be reconciled 
with a reluctance to accept the spiritual hypo- 
thesis as the explanation. 

Now, I soon found out not only that raps would 
always come at a table at which Madame Blavatsky 
sat with the view of obtaining such results, but 
that all conceivable hypotheses of fraud in the 
matter were rapidly disposed of by a comparison of 
the various experiments we were able to make. To 
begin with, there was no necessity for other people 
to sit at the table at all. We could work with 
any table under any circumstances, or without a 
table at all. A window-pane would do equally 
well, or the wall, or any door, or anything what- 
ever which could give out a sound if hit. A half 
glass door put ajar was at once seen to be a very 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



4 



good instrument to choose, because it was easy to 
stand opposite Madame Biavatsky in this case, to 
see her bare hands or hand (without any rings) 
resting motionless on the pane, and to hear the 
little ticks come plainly, as if made with the point 
of a pencil or with the sound of electric sparks 
passing from one knob of an electrical apparatus 
to another. Another very satisfactory way of 
obtaining the raps — one frequently employed 
in the evening — was to set down a lar^e glass clock- 
shade on the hearthrug, and get Madame Biavatsky, 
after removing all rings from her hands, and sitting 
well clear of the shade so that no part of her dress 
touched it, to lay her hands on it. Putting a lamp 
on the ground opposite, and sitting down on the 
hearthrug, one could see the under surfaces of the 
hands resting on the glass, and still under these 
perfectly satisfactory conditions the raps would 
come, clear and distinct, on the sonorous surface 
of the shade. 

It was out of Madame Blavatsky's power to give 
an exact explanation as to how these raps were 
produced. Every effort of occult power is con- 
nected with some secret or other, and slight, re- 
garded in the light of phenomena, as the raps were, 
they were physical effects produced by an effort of 
will, and the manner in which the will can be 
trained to produce physical effects may be too 
uniform, as regards great and small phenomena, to be 
made in accordance with the rules of occultism the 
subject of exact exp/anations to uninitiated persons. 
But the fact that the raps were obedient to the will 
was readily put beyond dispute, in this way amongst 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



others : working with the window-pane or the 
clockshade, I would ask to have a name spelled out, 
mentioning one at random. Then I would call over 
the alphabet, and at the right letters the raps would 
come. Or I would ask for a definite number of 
raps, and they would come. Or for series of raps 
in some defined rhythmical progression, and they 
would come. Nor was this all. Madame Blavatsky 
would sometimes put her hands, or one only, on 
someone else's head, and make the raps come, 
audibly to an attentive listener and perceptibly to 
the person touched, who would feel each little shock 
exactly as if he were taking sparks off the conductor 
of an electrical machine. 

At a later stage of my inquiries I obtained raps 
under better circumstances again than these — 
namely, without contact between the object on 
which they were produced and Madame Blavatsky's 
hands at all. This was at Simla in the summer of 
last year (1880), but I may as well anticipate a 
little as far as the raps are concerned. At Simla 
Madame Blavatsky used to produce the raps on a 
little table set in the midst of an attentive group, 
with no one touching it at all. After starting it, 
or charging it with some influence by resting her 
hands on it for a few moments, she would hold one 
about a foot above it and make mesmeric passes at 
it, at each of which the table would yield the 
familiar sound. Nor was this done only at our 
own house with our own tables. The same thing 
w r ould be done at friends' houses, to which Madame 
Blavatsky accompanied us. And a further develop- 
ment of the head experiment was this: It was 



4 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



47 



found to be possible for several persons to feel the 
same rap simultaneously. Four or five persons used 
sometimes to put their hands in a pile, one on 
another on a table ; then Madame Blaratsky would 
put hers on the top of the pile and cause a current, 
of whatever it is which produces the sound, to pass 
through the whole series of hands, felt by each 
simultaneously, and record itself in a rap on the 
table beneath. Any one who has ever taken part 
in forming such a pile of hands must feel as to some 
of the hypotheses concerning the raps that have 
been put forward in the Indian papers by determined 
sceptics — hard-headed persons not to be taken in — 
to the effect that the raps are produced by Madame 
Blavatsky's thumb-nails or by the cracking of some 
joint — that such hypotheses are rather idiotic. 

Summing up the argument in language which I 
used in a letter written at the time, it stands as 
follows ; " Madame Blavatsky puts her hands on a 
table and raps are heard on it. Some wiseacre 
suggests she does it with her thumb-nails ; she puts 
only one hand on the table ; the raps comes still. 
Does she conceal any artifice under her hand ? She 
lifts her hand from the table altogether, and merely 
holding it in the air above, the raps still come. 
Has she done anything to the table ? She puts her 
hand on a window-pane, on a picture frame, on a 
dozen different places about the room in succession, 
and from each in turn come the mysterious raps. 
Is the house where she stays with her own parti- 
cular friends about her prepared all over? She 
goes to half a dozen other houses at Simla and pro- 
duces raps at them all. Do the raps really come 



4 3 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



from somewhere else than where they seem to come 
from — are they perhaps ventriloquism? She puts 
her hand on your head, and from the motionless 
fingers you feel something which resembles a minute 
series of electric shocks, and an attentive listener 
beside yon will hear them producing little raps on 
your skull. Are you telling a lie when you say 
you feel the shocks ? Half a dozen people put 
their hands one on the other in a pile 'on the table ; 
Madame Blavatsky puts hers on the top of all, and 
each person feels the little throbs pass through, and 
hears them record themselves in faint raps on the 
table on which the pile of hands is resting. When 
a person has seen all these experiments many times, 
as I have, what impression do you think is made on 
his mind by a person who says\ 6 There is nothing 
in raps but conjuring — Maskelyne and Cooke can. 
do them for £10 a night V Maskelyne and Cooke 
cannot do them for £10 a night nor for ten lakhs 
a night undier the circumstances I describe.' 5 

The raps even as I heard them during the first 
visit that Madame Blavatsky paid us at Allahabad, 
gave me a complete assurance that she was in posses- 
sion of some faculties of an abnormal character. 
And this assurance lent a credibility, that would not 
otherwise have belonged to them, to one or two 
phenomena of a different kind which also occurred 
at that time, the conditions of which were not com- 
plete enough to make them worth recording here. 
But it was mortifying to approach no nearer to 
absolute certitude concerning the questions in which 
we were really interested — namely, whether there 
did indeed exist men with the wonderful powers 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCE 

ascribed to the adepts, and whether in this ? 
was possible for human creatures to obtain posit] 
knowledge concerning the charasteristics of then- 
own spiritual nature. It must be remembered that 
Madame Blavatsky was preaching no specific doctrine 
on this subject. What she told us about the adepts 
and her own initiation was elicited by questions. 
Theosophy, in which she did seek to interest all her 
friends, did not proclaim any specific belief on the 
subject. It simply recommended the theory that 
' humanity should be regarded as a Universal Brother- 
hood in which each person should study the truth 
as regards spiritual things, freed from the preposses- 
sions of any specific religious dogma. But although 
her attitude, as regards the whole subject, put her 
under no moral obligation to prove the reality of 
occultism, her conversation and her book, " Isis Un- 
veiled," disclosed a view of things which one naturally 
desired to explore further ; and it was tantalizing to 
feel that she could, and yet could not, give us the 
final proofs we so much desired to have, that her 
occult training really had invested her with powers 
over material things of a kind which, if one could 
but feel sure they were actually in her possession, 
would utterly shatter the primary foundations of 
materialistic philosophy. 

One conviction we felt had been fully attained. 
This was the conviction of her own good faith. It 
is disagreeable merely to recognize that this can be 
impugned ; but this has been done in Indiana so reck- 
lessly and cruelly by people who take up an attitude 
of hostility to the views with which she is identified, 
that it would be affectation to pass the question by. 
3 



THE OCCULT WCRLD. 



j other hand, it would be too great a conces- 
to an ignoble attack to go minutely over the 
denee of her honesty of character with which 
j .iy intimacy with Madame Blavatsky has gradually 
supplied me. At various times she has been a 
guest of ours for periods now amounting in all to 
more than three months out of nearly two years. To 
any impartial intelligence it will be manifest that, 
under these circumstances, I must have been able to 
form a better opinion concerning her real character 
than can possibly be derived from the crude observa- 
tions of persons who have perhaps met her once or 
twice. I am not, of course, attributing any scientific 
value to this sort of testimony as accrediting the 
abnormal character of phenomena she may be con- 
cerned in producing. With such a mighty problem 
at stake as the trustworthiness of the fundamental 
theories of modern physical science, it is impossible 
to proceed by any other but scientific modes of 
investigation. In any experiments I have tried I 
have always been careful to exclude, not merely the 
probability, but the possibility of trickery ; and where 
it has been impossible to secure the proper conditions, 
1 have not allowed the results of the experiment to 
enter into the sum total of my conclusions. But, in 
its place, it seems only right — only a slight attempt 
to redress the scandalous wrong which, as far as 
mere insult and slander can do a wrong, has been 
done to a very high-minded and perfectly honour- 
able Woman — to record the certainty at which in 
progress of time both my wife and myself arrived, 
that Madame Blavatsky is a lady of absolutely up- 
right nature, who has sacrificed, not merely rank 



FIRST OCCL- I 5I 

and fortune, but all thought ire or 

comfort in any shape, from eni It 

studies in the first instance, and la 

special task she has taken in hand as 

in, if relatively a humble member of, the 

occult fraternity — the direction of the Theoso^ 

Society. 

Besides the production of the raps one other 
phenomenon had been conceded to us during 
Madame Blavatsky's first visit. We had gone with 
her to Benares for a few days, and were staying at 
a house lent to us by the Maharajah of Viziana- 
gram— -a big, bare, comfortless abode as judged by 
European standards — in the central hall of which 
we were sitting one evening after dinner. Suddenly 
three or four flowers — cut roses — fell in the midst of 
us — just as such things sometimes fall in the dark 
at spiritual seances. But in this case there were 
several lamps and candles in the room. The ceil- 
ing of the hall consisted simply of the solid, bare, 
painted rafters and boards that supported the flat 
cement roof of the building. The phenomenon was 
so wholly unexpected— as unexpected, I am given to 
understand, by Madame Blavatsky, sitting in an arm- 
chair reading at the time, as by the rest of us — 
that it lost some of the effect it would otherwise 
have had on our minds. If one could have been 
told a moment beforehand "now some flowers are 
going to fall," so that we could have looked up and 
seen them suddenly appear in the air above our 
heads, then the impressive effect of an incident so 
violently out of the common order of things would 
have been very great. Even as it was, the incident 



52 



ULT WORLD, 



ha r .for those who witnessed it one 

their road to a conviction of the 
iult powers. Persons to whom it is 
L ed cannot be expected to rely upon « 
great extent. They will naturally ask 
as questions as to the construction of the room, 

iio inhabited the house, &c, and even when all 
these questions had been answered, as they truth- 
fully could be in a manner which would shut out 
any hypothesis by means of which the fall of the 
flowers could be explainable by any conjuring trick) 
there would still be an uncomfortable suspicion left 
in the questioner's mind as to the completeness of 
the explanation given. It might hardly have been 
worth while to bring the incident on to the present 
record at all, but for the opportunity it affords me 
of pointing out that the phenomena produced in 
Madame Blavatsky's presence need not necessarily 
be of her producing. 

Coming now to details in connection with some 
of the larger mysteries of occultism, I am oppressed 
by the difficulty of leading up to a statement of 
what I know now to be facts — as absolute facts as 
Charing Cross — which shall, nevertheless, be gradual 
enough not to shock the understanding of people 
absolutely unused to any but the ordinary grooves 
of thought as regards physical phenomena. None 
the less is it true that any "Brother," as the adepts 
in occultism are familiarly referred to, who may 
have been seized with the impulse to bestow on our 
party at Benares the little surprise described above, 
may have been in Thibet or in the South of India, 
or aiiywhere else in the world at the time, and yet 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



just as able to make the roses fall as if he had been 
in the room with us. I have spoken already of 
the adept's power of being present " in spirit " as 
we should say, " in astral body " as an occultist 
would say, at any distant place in the flash of a 
moment at will. So present, he can exercise in 
that distant place some of the psychological powers 
which he possesses, as completely as he can exercise 
them in physical body wherever he may actually 
be, as we understand the expression. I am not 
pretending to give an explanation of how he pro- 
duces this or that result, nor for a moment hinting 
that I know. I am recording merely the certain 
fact that various occult results have been accom- 
plished in my presence, and explaining as much 
about them as I have been able to find out. But at 
all events it has long since become quite plain to 
me, that wherever Madame Blavatsky is, there the 
Brothers, wherever they may be, can and constantly 
do produce phenomena of the most overwhelming 
sort, with the production of which she herself has 
little or nothing to do. In reference, indeed, to 
any* phenomenon occurring in her presence, it must 
be remembered that one can never have any exact 
knowledge as to how far her own powers may have 
been employed, or how far she may have been 
" helped," or whether she has not been quite un- 
influential in the production of the result. Precise 
explanations of this kind are quite contrary to the 
rules of occultism — which, it must always be 
remembered, is not trying to convince the world of 
its existence. In this volume I am trying to., con- 
vince the world of its existence, but that is anot^r 



54 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



matter altogether. Anyone who wishes to know 
how the truth really stands can only take up the 
position of a seeker of truth. He is not a judge 
before whom occultism comes to plead for credi- 
bility. It is useless, therefore, to quarrel with the 
observations we are enabled to make on the ground 
that they are not of the kind one would best like 
to make. The question is whether they yield data 
on which conclusions may safely rest. 

And another consideration claims treatment in 
connexion with the character of the observations 
which,* so far, I have been enabled to make — that is 
to say, in connexion with any search for proof of 
occult power as regards physical phenomena which 
but for such agency would be miraculous. I can 
foresee that, in spite of the abject stupidity of the 
remark, many people will urge that the force of the 
experiments with which I have had to deal is 
vitiated because they relate to phenomena which 
,- have a certain superficial resemblance to conjuring 
tricks. Of course this ensues from the fact that 
conjuring tricks all aim at achieving a certain 
superficial resemblance to occult phenomena. Let 
any reader, whatever his present frame of mincf on 
the subject may be, assume for a moment that he 
has seen reason to conceive that there may be an 
occult fraternity in existence wielding strange 
powers over natural forces as yet unknown to 
ordinary humanity ; that this fraternity is bound 
by rules which cramp the manifestation of these 
powers, but do not absolutely prohibit it; and then 
let him propose some comparatively small but 
scientifically convincing tests which he could ask to 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



, ve conceded to him as a proof of the reality of 
me part, at all events, of these powers : it will 
, be found that it is impossible to propose any such 
'test that does not bear a certain superficial re- 
Remblance to a conjuring trick. But this will not 
necessarily impair the value of the test for people 
capable of dealing with those characteristics of ex- 
periments that are not superficial. 

The gulf of difference which is really to be 
observed lying between any of the occult phenomena 
I shall have to describe presently and a conjuring 
trick which might imitate it, is due to the fact that 
the conditions would be utterly unlike. The con- 
juror would wofk in his own stage, or in a prepared 
room. The most remarkable of the phenomena I 
have had in the presence of Madame Blavatsky 
have taken place away out of doors in fortuitously 
chosen places in the woods and on the hills. The 
conjuror is assisted by any required number of 
confederates behind his scenes* Madame Blavatsky 
comes a stranger to Simla, and is a guest in my 
own house, under my own observation, during the 
whole of her visit. The conjuror is paid to incur 
he expenses of accomplishing this or that deception 
If the senses. Madame Blavatsky is, what I have 
Iready explained, a lady of honourable character, 
instrumental in helping her friends — at their earnest 
desire wherever phenomena are produced at all — to 
^ee some manifestation of the powers in the ac- 
quisition of which (instead of earning money by 
? hem as the conjuror does with his) she has sacri- 
.ced everything the world generally holds dear — > 
station, and so forth, immeasurably above that to 



56 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

which any conjuror or any impostor could aspire. 
Pursuing Madame Blavatsky with injurious sus- 
picions, persons who resent the occult hypothesis 
will constantly forget the dictates of common sense 
in overlooking these considerations. 

About the beginning of September, 1880, Madame 
Blavatsky came to Simla as our guest, and in the 
course of the following six weeks various phenomena 
occurred, which became the talk of all Anglo-India 
for a time, and gave rise to some excited feeling on 
the part of persons who warmly espoused the theory 
that they must be the result of imposture. It soon 
became apparent to us that whatever might have 
been the nature of the restrictions which operated 
the previous winter at Allahabad to prevent our 
guest from displaying more than the very least of 
her powers, these restrictions were now less opera- 
tive than before. We were soon introduced to a 
phenomenon we had not been treated to previously. 
By some modification of the force employed to 
produce the sound of raps on any object, Madame 
Blavatsky can produce in the air, without the inter- 
mediation of any solid object whatever, the sound of 
a silvery bell — sometimes a chime or little run of 
three or four bells on different notes. We had 
often heard about these bells, but had never heard 
them produced before. They were produced for us 
for the first time one evening after dinner while we 
were still sitting round the table, several times in 
succession in the air over our heads, and in one 
instance instead of the single bell-sound there came 
one of the chimes of which L speak. Later on I 



FIRST OCCUL'i "ES. 57 

heard them on scores of oc 'n all sorts 

of different places — in the op different 
houses where Madame Blavak from time 

to time. As before with the 1 is no 

hypothesis in the case of the be. be 
framed by an adherent of the ii >ry 
which does not break down on a com e' 
different occasions and conditions urn bici 
have heard them produced. Indeed, 
of imposture is one which in the matt 
bells has only one narrow conjecture to 
Unlike the sound of a rap, which in the 01 
way could be produced by many different me, 
— so that, to be sure any given example of sue 
sound is not produced by ordinary means, one h 
to procure its repetition under a great varie 
of conditions — the sound of a bell can only be 
made, physically, in a few ways. You must have 
a bell, or some sonorous object in the nature of a 
bell, to make it with. Now, when sitting in a well 
lighted room, and attentively watching, you get the 
sound of a bell up above your heads where there is 
no physical bell to yield it — what are the hypotheses 
which can attribute the result to trickery ? Is the 
sound really produced outside the room altogether 
by some agent or apparatus in another ? First of 
all no rational person who had heard this sound 
would advance that theory, because the sound itself 
is incompatible with the idea. It is never loud— 
at least I have never heard it very loud — but it is 
always clear and distinct to a remarkable extent. 
If you lightly strike the edge of a thin claret glass 
3* 



58 LT WORLD. 

with a kn ' get a sound which it would 

be difficT ie any one had come from 

anotke ie occult bell-sound is like that, 

only , i irer, with no sub-sound of jarring 

in Independently of this, I have, as 

J tie sound in the open air produced 

in the stillness of evening. In rooms 
.ways been overhead, but sometimes down 
; round amongst the feet of a group of 
listening for it. Again, on one occasion, 
it had been produced two or three times in 
drawing-room of a friend's house where we had 
lining, one gentlemen of the party went 
e dining-room two rooms off, to get a 
3 with which to make a sound for the 
to repeat — a familiar form of the experi- 
ixi^ t. V. hile by himself in the dining-room he 
heard one of the bell-sounds produced near him, 
though Madame Blavatsky had remained in the 
drawing-room. This example of the phenomenon 
satisfactorily disposed of the theory, absurd in itself 
for persons who frequently heard the bells in all 
manner of places, that Madame Blavatsky carried 
some apparatus about her with which to produce 
the sound. As for the notion of confederacy, that 
is disposed of by the fact that I have repeatedly 
heard the sounds when out walking beside Madame 
Blavatsky's jampan with no other person near us 
but the jampanees carrying it. 

The bell-sounds arc not mere sportive illustra- 
tions of the properties of the currents which are set 
in action to produce them. They serve the direct, 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 59 

practical purpose among occultists of a telegraphic 
call-bell. It appears that when trained occultists 
are concerned, so that the mysterious magnetic 
connection, whatever it may be, which enables them 
to communicate ideas is once established, they can 
produce the bell-sounds at any distance in the 
neighbourhood of the fellow-initiate whose atten- 
tion they wish to attract. I have repeatedly heard 
Madame Blavatsky called in this way, when our 
own little party being alone some evening, we 
have all been quietly reading. A little " ting" would 
suddenly sound, and Madame Blavatsky would get 
up and go to her room to attend to whatever occult 
business may have been the motive of her sum- 
mons. A very pretty illustration of the sound, as 
thus produced by some brother-initiate at a distance, 
was afforded one evening under these circumstances. 
A lady, a guest at another house in Simla, had been 
dining with us, when about eleven o 9 clock I received 
a note from her host, enclosing a letter which he 
asked me to get Madame Blavatsky to send on by 
occult means to a certain member of the great 
fraternity to whom both he and 1 had been writing. 
I shall explain the circumstances of this corre- 
spondence more fully later on. We were all anxious 
to know at once — before the lady with us that 
evening returned up the hill, so that she could take 
back word to her host — whether the letter could be 
sent ; but Madame Blavatsky declared that her own 
powers would not enable her to perform the feat. 
The question w T as whether a certain person, a half- 
developed brother then in the neighbourhood of 



6o 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



Simla, would give the necessary help. Madame 
Blavatsky said she would see if she could " find 
him/' and taking the letter in her hands, she went 
out into the verandah, where we all followed her. 
Leaning on the balustrade, and looking over the 
wide sweep of the Simla valley, she remained for a 
few minutes perfectly motionless and silent, as we 
all were ; and the night was far enough advanced 
for all commonplace sounds to have settled down, 
so that the stillness was perfect. Suddenly, in the 
air before us, there sounded the clear note of an 
occult-bell. " All right," cried Madame, " he will 
take it." And duly taken the letter was shortly 
afterwards. But the phenomenon involved in its 
transmission will be better introduced to the reader 
in connection with other examples. 

I come now to a series of incidents which 
exhibit occult power in a more striking light than 
any of those yet described. To a scientific mind, 
indeed, the production of sounds by means of a 
force unknown to ordinary science should be as 
clear a proof that the power in question is a power, 
as the more sensational phenomena which have to 
do with the transmission of solid objects by occult 
agency. The sound can only reach our ears by the 
vibration of air, and to set up the smallest undu- 
lation of air as the effect of a thought will appear 
to the ordinary understanding as no less out- 
rageous an impossibility than the uprooting of a tree 
in a similar way. Still there are degrees in won- 
derfulness which the feelings recognize even if such 
distinctions are irrational. 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 61 

The first incident of the kind which I now take 
up is not one which would in itself be a complete 
proof of anything for an outsider. I describe it 
rather for the benefit of readers who may be, either 
through spiritualistic experiences or in any other 
way, already alive to the possibility of phenomena 
as such, and interested rather in experiments which 
may throw light on their genesis than in mere, 
texts. Managed a little better, the occurrence now 
to be dealt with would have been a beautiful test ; 
but Madame Blavatsky, left to herself in such 
matters, is always the worst devisor of tests ima- 
ginable. Utterly out of sympathy with the positive 
and incredulous temperament ; engaged all her life 
in the development amongst Asiatic mystics of 
the creative rather than the critical faculties, she 
never can follow the intricate suspicions with which 
the European observer approaches the consideration 
of the marvellous in its simplest forms. The mar- 
vellous, in forms so stupendously marvellous that 
they almost elude the grasp of ordinary concep- 
tions, has been the daily food of her life for a great 
* number of years, and it is easy to realize that, for 
her, the jealous distrust with which ordinary people 
hunt round the slightest manifestation of occult 
force to find any loophole through which a sus- 
picion of fraud may creep, as no less tiresome and 
stupid, then the ordinary person conceives the too 
credulous spirit to be. 

About the end of September my wife went one 
afternoon with Madame Blavatsky to the top of a 
neighbouring hill. They were only accompanied by 



62 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



one other friend. I was not present myself on this 
occasion^ While there Madame Blavatsky asked my 
wife, in a joking way, what was her heart's desire. 
She said at random and on the spur oi the moment, 
" to get a note from one of the Brothers." Madame 
Blavatsky took from her pocket a piece of blank 
pink paper that had been torn of£ a note received 
that day. Folding this up into a small compass 
she took it to the edge of the hill, held it up for a 
moment or two between her hands and returned 
saying that it was gone. She presently, after com- 
municating mentally by her own occult methods 
with the distant Brother, said he asked where my 
wife would have the letter. At first she said she 
should like- it to come fluttering down into her lap, 
but some conversation ensued as to whether this 
would be the best way to get it, and ultimately it 
was decided that she should find it in a certain tree. 
Here, of course, a mistake was made, which opens 
the door to the suspicions of resolutely disbelieving 
persons. It will be supposed that Madame Blavatsky 
had some reasons of her own for wishing the tree 
chosen. For readers who favour that conjecture after 
all that has gone before, it is only necessary to 
repeat that the present story is being told not as a 
proof, but as an incident. 

At first Madame Blavatsky seems to have made a 
mistake as to the description of the tree which the 
distant Brother was indicating as that in which he 
was going to put the note, and witli some trouble 
my wife scrambled on to the lower branch of a bare 
and leafless trunk on which nothing could be found. 
Madame then again got into communication with 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 63 

the Brother and ascertained her mistake. Into 
s another tree at a little distance, which neither 
Madame nor the one other person present had ap- 
proached, my' wife now climbed a few feet and 
looked all roimd among the branches. At first she 
saw nothing, but then, turning back her head with- 
out moving. from the position she had taken up, 
she saw on a twig immediately before her face — 
where a moment previously there had been nothing 
but leaves— a little pink note. This was stuck on 
to the stalk of a leaf that had been quite freshly 
torn off, for the stalk was still green and moist- 
not withered as it would have been if the leaf had 
been torn off for any length of time. The note 
was found to contain these few words : " I have 
been asked to leave a note here for you. What 
can I do for jou ?" It was signed by some Thibetan 
characters. The pink paper on which it was written 
appeared to be the same which Madame Blavatzky 
had taken blank from her pocket shortly before. 

How was it transmitted first to the Brother who 
wrote upon it and then back again to the top of our 
hill ? not to speak of the mystery of its attachment 
to the tree in the way described. So far as I can 
frame conjectures on this subject, it would be pre- 
mature to set them forth in detail till I have gone 
more fully into the facts observed. It is no use to 
discuss the way the wings of flying-fish are made 
for people who will not believe in the reality of 
flying-fish at all, and refuse to accept phenomena 
less guaranteed by orthodoxy than Pharaoh's 
chariot wheels. 

1 come now to the incidents of a very remarkable 



6 4 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



day. The day before, I should explain, we started 
on a little expedition which turned out a coup manque, 
though, but for some tiresome mishaps, it might have 
led, we afterwards had reason to think, to some very 
interesting results. We mistook our way to a place 
of which Madame Blavatzky had received an im- 
perfect description — or a description she imperfectly 
understood — in an occult conversation with one of 
the Brothers then actually passing through Simla. 
Had we gone the right way that day we might have 
had the good fortune of meeting him, for he stayed 
one night at a certain old Thibetan temple, or rest- 
house, such as is often found about the Himalayas, 
and which the blind apathy of commonplace English 
people leads them to regard as of no particular 
interest or importance. Madame Blavatsky was 
wholly unacquainted with Simla, and the account 
she gave us of the place she wanted to go to led us 
to think she meant a different place. We started, 
and for a long time Madame declared that we must 
be going in the right direction because she felt 
certain currents. Afterwards it appeared that the 
road to the place we were making for, and to that 
for which we ought to have made, were coincident 
for a considerable distance ; but a slight divergence 
at one point carried us into a wholly wrong system 
of hill-paths. Eventually Madame utterly lost her 
scent : we tried back ; we who knew Simla dis- 
cussed its topography and wondered where it could 
be she wanted to get to, but all to no purpose. 
We launched ourselves down a hill-side where 
Madame declared she once more felt the missing 
current ; but occult currents may How where travel- 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



65 



lers cannot pass, and when we attempted this descent 
I knew the case was desperate. After a while the 
expedition had to be abandoned, and we went home 
much disappointed. 

Why, some one may ask, could not the omniscient 
Brother feel that Madame was going wrong, and 
direct us properly in time? I say this question 
will be asked, because I know from experience that 
people unused to the subject will not bear in mind 
the relations of the Brothers to such inquirers as 
ourselves^ In this case, for example, the situation 
was not one in which the Brother in question was 
anxiously waiting to prove his existence to a jury of 
intelligent Englishmen. We can learn so little 
about the daily life of an adept in occultism, that 
we who are uninitiated can tell very little about the 
interests that really engage his attention ; but we 
can find out this much — that his attention is con- 
stantly engaged on interests connected with his own 
work, and the gratification of the curiosity concern- 
ing occult matters of persons who are not regular 
students of occultism forms no part of that work at 
all. On the contrary, unless under very exceptional 
conditions, he is even forbidden to make any con- 
cessions whatever to such curiosity. In the cas.3 in 
point the course of events may probably have been 
something of this kind : — Madame Blavatsky per- 
ceived by her own occult tentaculee that one of her 
illustrious friends was in the neighbourhood. She 
immediately — having a sincere desire to oblige us — 
may have asked him whether she might bring us to 
see him. Probably he would regard any such request 
very much as the astronomer royal might regard 



66 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



the request of a friend to bring a party of ladies to 
look through his telescopes; but none the less he 
might say, to please his half -fledged " brother " in 
occultism, Madame Blavatsky, " Yery well, bring 
them, if you like : I am in such and such a place.' 5 
And then he would go on with his work, remember- 
ing afterwards that the intended visit had never 
been paid, and perhaps turning an occult perception 
in the direction of the circumstances to ascertain 
what had happened. 

However this may have been, the expedition as 
first planned broke down. It was not with the hope 
of seeing the Brother, but on the general principle of 
hoping for something to turn up, that we arranged to 
go for a picnic the following day in another direction, 
which, as the first road had failed, we concluded to be 
probably the one we ought to have taken previously. 
, We set out at the appointed time next morning. 
We were originally to have been a party of six, but 
a seventh person joined us just before we started. 
After going down the hill for some hours a place 
was chosen in the wood near the upper waterfall 
for our breakfast : the baskets that had been brought 
with us were unpacked, and, as usual at an Indian 
picnic, the servants at a little distance lighted a fire 
and set to work to make tea and coffee. Concerning 
this some joking arose over the fact that we had 
one cup and saucer too few, on account of the 
seventh person who joined us at starting, and some 
one laughingly asked Madame Blavatsky to create 
another cup and saucer. There was no set purpose 
in the proposal at first, but when Madame Blavatsky 
said it would be very difficult, but that if we liked 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 67 



she would try, attention was of course at once 
arrested. Madame Blavatsky, as usual, held mental 
conversation with one of the Brothers, and then 
wandered a little about in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of where we were sitting — that is to say, 
within a radius of half-a-dozen to a dozen yards 
from our picnic cloth — I closely following, waiting 
to see what would happen. Then she marked a 
spot on the ground, and called to one of the gentle- 
men of the party to bring a knife to dig with. The 
place chosen was the edge of a little slope covered 
with thick weeds and grass and shrubby under- 
growth. The gentleman with the knife — let us 

call him X as I shall have to refer to him 

afterwards — tore up these in the first place with 
some difficulty, as the roots were tough and closely 
interlaced. Cutting then into the matted roots and 
earth with the knife, and pulling away the debris 
with his hands, he came at last, on the edge of some- 
thing white, which turned out, as it was completely 
excavated, to be the required cup. A correspond- 
ing saucer was also found after a little more dig- 
ging. Both objects were in among the roots which 
spread everywhere through the ground, so that it 
seemed as if the roots were growing round them. 
The cup and saucer both corresponded exactly, as 
regards their pattern, with those that had been 
brought to the picnic, and constituted a seventh 
cup and saucer when brought back to where we 
were to have breakfast. I may as well add at 
once that afterwards, when we got home, my wife 
questioned our principal khitmutgar as to how 
many cups and saucers of that particular kind we 



63 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



possessed. In the progress of years, as the set was 
an old set, some had been broken, but the man at 
once said that nine teacups were left. When 
collected and counted that number was found to be 
right, without reckoning the excavated cup. That 
made ten, and as regards the pattern, it was one of 
a somewhat peculiar kind, bought a good many 
years previously in London, and which assuredly 
could never have been matched in Simla. 

Now, the notion that human beings can create 
material objects by the exercise of mere psycho- 
logical power, will of course be revolting to the 
understandings of people to whom this whole sub- 
ject is altogether strange. It is not making the 
idea much more acceptable to say that the cup and 
saucer appear in this case to have been " doubled " 
rather than created. The doubling of objects seems 
merely another kind of creation — creation according 
to a pattern. However, the facts, the occurrences 
of the morning I have described, were at all events 
exactly as I have related them. I have been care- 
ful as to the strict and minute truthfulness of every 
detail. If the phenomenon was not what it ap- 
peared to be — a most wonderful display of a power 
of which the modern scientific world has no coim 
prehension whatever — it was, of course, an elaborate 
fraud. That supposition, however, setting aside the 
moral impossibility from any point of view of 
assuming Madame Blavatsky capable of participa- 
tion in such an imposture, will only bear to be 
talked of vaguely. As a way out of the dilemma it 
will not serve any person of ordinary intelligence 
who is aware of the facts, or who trusts my state- 



• V EXPERIENCES. 



69 



ment of th were assuredly 

dug up in thb they were not 

deposited there by c f have 

been buried there beforetu de- 
scribed the character of the groui * hie] 
they were dug up ; assuredly that 1 j 
turbed for years by the character of tht, 
upon it. But it may be urged that fron 
other part of the sloping ground a sort of tu. 
may have been excavated in the first instance 
through which the cup and saucer could have been 
thrust into the place where they were found. Now 
this theory is barely tenable as regards its physical 
possibility. If the tunnel had been big enough for 
the purpose it would have left traces which were 
not perceptible on the ground — which were not 
even discoverable when the ground was searched 
shortly afterwards with a view to that hypothesis. 
But the truth is that the theory of previous burial 
is morally untenable in view of the fact that the 
demand for the cup and saucer — of all the myriad 
things that might have been asked for — could never 
have been foreseen. It arose out of circumstances 
themselves the sport of the moment. If no extra 
person had joined us at the last moment the 
number of cups and saucers packed up by the 
servants would have been sufficient for our needs, 
and no attention would have been drawn to them. 
It was by the servants, without the knowledge of 
any guest, that the cups taken were chosen from 
•others that might just as easily have been taken. 
Had the burial fraud been really perpetrated it 
would have been necessary to constrain us to choose 



70 



THE r 



the exact spo' I ^se for the picnic 

with a vie parations, but the exact 

spot impans were deposited was 

concert with the gentleman 

dS X , and it was within a few 

spot that the cup was found. Thus, 
he other absurdities of the fraud hypothesis 
of sight, who could be the agents employed to 
^eposit the cup and saucer in the ground, and 
when did they perform the operation ? Madame 
Blavatsky was under our roof the whole time from 
the previous evening when the picnic was deter- 
termined on to the moment of starting. The one 
personal servant she had with her, a Bombay boy 
and a perfect stranger to Simla, was constantly 
about the house the previous evening, and from the 
first awakening of the household in the morning — 
and as it happened he spoke to my own bearer in 
the middle of the night, for I had been annoyed by 
a loft door which had been left unfastened, and was 
slamming in the wind, and called up servants to 
shut it. Madame Blavatsky it appears, thus 
awakened, had sent her servant, who always slept 
within call, to inquire what was the matter. Colonel 
Olcott, the President of the Theosophical Society, 
also a guest of ours at the time of which I am 
speaking, was certainly with us all the evening from 
the period of our return from the abortive expedi- 
tion of the afternoon, and was also present at the 
start. To imagine that he spent the night in going 
four or five miles down a difficult hhvd through 
forest paths difficult to find, to bury a cup and 
saucer of a kind that we were not likely to take in 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 71 

a place we were not likely to go to, in order that 
in tlie exceedingly remote contingency of its being 
required for the perpetration of a hoax it might be 
there, would certainly be a somewhat extravagant 
conjecture. Another consideration— the destination 
for which we were making can be approached by 
two roads from opposite ends of the upper horseshoe 
of hills on which Simla stands. It was open to us 
to select either path, and certainly neither Madame 
• Blavatsky nor Colonel Olcott had any share in the 
selection of that actually taken. Had we taken the 
other, we should never have come to the spot where 
we actually picniced. 

The hypothesis of fraud in this affair is, as I have 
said, a defiance of common sense when worked out in 
any imaginable way. The extravagance of this 
explanation will, moreover, be seen to heighten as 
my narrative proceeds, and as the incident just 
related is compared with others which took place 
later. But I have not yet done with the incidents 
of the cup-morning. 

The gentleman called X had been a good 

deal with, us during the week or two that had 
already elapsed since Madame Blavatsky's arrival. 
Like many of our friends, he had been greatly 
impressed with much he had seen in her presence. 
He had especially come to the conclusion that the 
Theosophical Society, in which she was interested, 
was exerting a good influence with the natives, a 
view whicji he had expressed more than once in 
warm language in my presence. He had declared 
his intention of joining this Society as I had done 
myself. Now, when the cup and saucer were found 

1 



72 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

most of us who were present, X among the 

number, were greatly impressed, and in the con- 
versation that ensued the idea arose that X 

might formally become a member of the Society 
then and there. I should not have taken part in 

this suggestion — I believe I originated it — if X 

had not in cool blood decided, as I understood, to 
join the Society ; in itself, moreover, a step which 
involved no responsibilities whatever, and simply 
indicated sympathy with the pursuit of occult know- 
ledge and a general adhesion to broad philan- 
throphic doctrines of brotherly sentiments towards all 
humanity, irrespective of race and creed. This has 
to be explained in view of some little annoyances 
which followed. 

The proposal that X should then and there 

formally join the Society was one with which he 
was quite ready to fall in. But some documents 
were required — a formal diploma, the gift of which 
to a new member should follow his initiation into 
certain little masonic forms of recognition adopted 
in the Society. How could we get a diploma ? 
Of course for the group then present a difficulty of 
this sort was merely another opportunity for the 
exercise of Madame's powers. Could she get a 
diploma brought to us by " magic ¥ ' After an 
occult conversation with the Brother who had then 
interested himself in our proceedings, Madame told 
us that the diploma would be forthcoming. She 
described the appearance it would present — a roll 
of paper wound round with an immense quantity 
of string, and then bound up in the leaves of a 
creeping plant. We should find it about m the 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



wood wtaere we were, and we could all look for it, 

but it would be X , for whom it was intended, 

who would find it. Thus it fell out. We all searched 
about in the undergrowth or in the trees, wherever 

fancy prompted us to look, and it was X who, 

found the roll, done up as described. 

We had had our breakfast by this time. X 

was formally " initiated " a member of the society 
by Colonel Olcott, and after a time we shifted our 
quarters to a lower place in the wood where there 
was the little Thibetan temple, or rest-house, which 
the Brother who had been passing through Simla — 
according to what Madame Blavatsky told us — had 
passed the previous night. We amused ourselves 
by examining the little building inside and out, 
" bathing m the good magnetism," as Madame 
Blavatsky expressed it, and then, lying on the grass 
outside, it occurred to someone that we wanted more 
coffee. The servants were told to prepare some, but 
it appeared that they had used up all our water. The 
water to be found in the streams near Simla is not of 
a kind to be used for purposes of this sort, and for a 
picnic, clean filtered water is always taken out in 
bottles. It appears that all the bottles in our baskets 
had been exhausted. This report was promptly veri- 
fied by the servants by the exhibition of the empty 
bottles. The only thing to be done was to send to 
a brewery, the nearest building, about a mile oft, and 
ask for water. I wrote a pencil note and a coolie went 
off with the empty bottles. Time passed, and the coolie 
returned, to our great disgust, without the water. 
There had been no European left at the brewery 
that clay (it was Sunday) to receive the note, and 
4 



74 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

the coolie had stupidly plodded back with the empty 
bottles under his arm, instead of asking about and 
finding someone able to supply the required water. 
At this time our party was a little dispersed. 

X and one of the other gentlemen had 

wandered off. No one of the remainder of the 
party was expecting fresh phenomena, when Madame 
suddenly got up, went over to the baskets, a dozen 
or twenty yards oft, picked out a bottle — one of 
those, 1 believe, which had been brought back by 
the coolie empty — and came back to us holding it 
under the fold of her dress. Laughingly producing 
it it was found to be full of water. Just like 
a conjuring trick, will some one say? Just 
like, except for the conditions. For such a 
conjuring trick, the conjurer defines the thing to 
be done. In our case the want of water was as 
unforeseeable in the first instance as the want of 
the cup and saucer. The accident that left the 
brewery deserted by its Europeans, and the further 
accident that the coolie sent up for water should 
have been so abnormally stupid even for a coolie as 
to come back without, because there happened to 
be no European to take my note, were accidents 
but for which the opportunity for obtaining the 
water by occult agency could not have arisen. 
And those accidents supervened on the fundamental 
accident, improbable in itseli, that our servants 
should have sent us out insufficiently supplied. 
That any bottle of water could have been left 
unnoticed at the bottom of the baskets is a sug- 
gestion that I can hardly imagine any one present 
putting forward, for the servants had been tound 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



\ 

75 



fault' with for not bringing enough ; they had just 
before had the baskets completely emptied out, and 
we had not submitted to the situation till we had 
been fully satisfied that there really was no more 
water left. Furthermore, I tasted the water in the 
bottle Madame Blavatsky produced, and it was not 
water of -the same kind as that which came from 
our own filters. It was an earthy-tasting water, 
unlike that of the modern Simla supply, but 
equally unlike, I may add, though in a different 
way, the offensive^ and discoloured water of the only 
stream flowing through those woods. 

How was it brought ? The how, of course, in 
all these cases is the great mystery which 1 am= 
unable to explain except in general terms ; but the 
impossibility of understanding the way adepts 
manipulate matter is one thing; the impossibility 
of denying that they do manipulate it in a manner 
which Western ignorance would describe as miracu- 
lous is another. The tact is there whether we can 
explain it or not. The rough, popular saying that 
you cannot argue the hind leg off a cow, embodies 
a sound reflection which our prudent sceptics in 
matters of the kind with which I am now dealing 
are too apt to overlook. You cannot argue away 
a fact by contending that by the lights in your 
mind it ought to be something different from what 
it is. Still less can you argue away a mass of 
facts like those I am now recording by a series of 
extravagant and contradictory hypotheses about each 
in turn. "What the determined disbeliever so often 
overlooks is that the scepticism which may show an 
acuteness of mind up to a certain point, reveals a 



76 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



deficient intelligence when adhered to in face of 
certain kinds of evidence. 

I remember when the phonograph was first 
invented, a scientific officer in the service of the 

-Indian Government sent me an article he had 
written on the earliest accounts received of the 
instrument — to prove that the story must be a 
hoax, because the instrument described was 
scientifically impossible. He had worked out the 
times of vibrations required to reproduce the 
sounds and so on, and very intelligently argued 
that the alleged result was unattainable. But 

• when phonographs in due time were imported into 
India, he did not continue to say they were im- 
possible, and that there must be a man shut up in 
each machine, even though there did not seem to 
be room. That last is the attitude of the self- 
complacent people who get over the difficulty 
about the causation of occult and spiritual pheno- 
mena by denying, in face of the palpable experience 
of thousands — in face of the testimony in shelves- 
ful of books that they do not read — that any such 
phenomena take place at all. 

X- , I should add here, afterwards changed 

his mind about the satisfactory character of the cup 
phenomena, and said he thought it vitiated as a 
scientific proof by the interposition of the theory 
that the cup and saucer might have been thrust up 
into their places by means of a tunnel cut from a 
lower part of the bank. I have discussed that 

hypothesis already, and mention the fact of X 's 

change of opinion, which does not affect any of the 
circumstances I have narrated, merely to avoid the 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



77 



chance that readers, who may have heard or read 
about the Simla phenomenon in other pages, might 
think I was treating the change of opinion in 
question as something which it was worth while to 
disguise. And, indeed, the convictions which I 
ultimately -attained were themselves the result of 
accumulated experiences I have yet to relate, so 
that I cannot tell how far my own certainty con- 
cerning the reality of occult power rests on any one 
example that I have seen. 

It was on the evening of the day of the cup 
phenomenon that there occurred an incident destined 
to become the subject of very wide discussion in all 
the Anglo-Indian papers. This was the celebrated 
" brooch incident." The facts were related at the 
time in a little statement drawn up for publication, 
and signed by the nine persons who witnessed it. 
This statement will be laid before the reader directly, 
but as the comments to which it gave rise showed 
that it was too meagre to convey a full and accurate 
idea of what occurred, I will describe the course 
of events a little more fully. In doing this, I may 
use names with a certain freedom, as these were all 
appended to the published document. 

We, that is, my wife and myself with our guests, 
had gone up the hill to dine, in accordance with 
previous engagements, with Mr. and Mrs. Hume. 
We dined, a party of eleven, at a round table, and 
Madame Blavatsky, sitting next our host, tired and 
out of spirits as it happened, was unusually silent. 
During the beginning of dinner she scarcely said a 
word, Mr. Hume conversing chiefly with the lady 
on his other hand. It is a common trick at Indian 



78 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



dinner-tables to have little metal platewarmers with 
hot water before each guest, on which each plate 
served remains while in use. Such platewarmers 
were used on the evening I am describing, and over 
hers — in an interval during which plates had been 
removed — Madame Blavatsky was absently warming 
her hands. Now, the production of Madame Bla- 
vatsky's raps and bell-sounds we had noticed some- 
times seemed easier and the effects better w r hen her 
hands had been warmed in this way ; so some one, 
seeing her engaged in warming them, asked her 
some question, hinting in an indirect way at phe- 
nomena. I was very far from expecting anything 
of the kind that evening, and Madame Blavatsky 
was equally far from intending to do anything her- 
self or from expecting any display at the hands of 
one of the Brothers. So, merely in mockery, when 
asked why she was warming her hands, she enjoined 
us all to warm our hands too and see what would 
happen. Some of the people present actually did 
so, a few joking words passing among them. Then 
Mrs. Hume raised a little laugh by holding up her 
hands and saying, " But I have warmed" my hands, 
what next?" Now Madame Blavatsky, as I have 
said, was not in a mood for any occult perfor- 
mances at all, but it appears from what I learned 
afterwards that just at this moment, or immediately 
before, she suddenly perceived by those occult 
faculties of which mankind at large have no know- 
ledge, that one of the Brothers was present " in 
astral body" invisible to the rest of us in the room. 
It was following his indications, therefore, that she 
acted in what followed ; of course no one knew at 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



79 



the time that she had received any impulse in the 
matter external to herself. What took place as 
regards the surface of things was simply this: 
"When Mrs. Hume said what I have set down above, 
and when the little laugh ensued, Madame Blavatsky 
>put out her hand across the one person sitting 
between herself and Mrs. Hume and took one of 
that lady's hands, saying, " Well then, do you wish 
for anything in particular ?" or as the lawyers say, 
" words to that eflect." I cannot repeat the precise 
sentences spoken, nor can I say now exactly what 
Mrs. Hume first replied before she quite understood 
the situation; but this was made clear in a very 
few minutes. Some of the other people present 
catching this first, explained, " Think of something 
you would like to have brought to you ; anything 
you like not wanted for any mere worldly motive ; 
is there anything you can think of that will be very 
difficult to get ?" Remarks of this sort were the 
only kind that were made in , the short interval that 
elapsed between the remark by Mrs. Hume about 
having warmed her hands and the indication by her 
of the thing she had thought of. She said then 
that she had thought of something that would do. 
What was it ? An old brooch that her mother had 
given her long ago and that she had lost. 

Now, when this brooch, which was ultimately 
recovered by occult agency, as the rest of my story 
will show, came to be talked about, people said : — 
" Of course Madame Blavatsky led up the conversa- 
tion to the particular thing she had arranged before- 
hand to produce." I have described all the con- 
versation which took place on this subject, before 



So 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



the brooch was named. There was no conversation 
about the brooch or any other thing of the kind 
whatever. Five minutes before the brooch was 
named, there had been no idea in the mind of any 
person present that any phenomenon in the nature 
of finding any lost article, or of any other kind, 
indeed, was going to be performed, Nor while 
Mrs. Hume was going over in her mind the things 
she might ask for, did she speak any word indicating 
the direction her thoughts were taking. 

From the point of the story now reached the 
narrative published at the time tells it almost as 
fully as it need be told, and, at all events, with a 
simplicity that will assist the reader in grasping all 
the facts — so I reprint it here in full. 

' 'On Sunday, the 3rd of October, at Mr. Hume's house 
at Simla, there were present at dinner Mr. and Mrs, Hume, 
Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett, Mrs. Gordon, Mr. F. Hogg, Captain 
P. J. Maitland, Mr. Beatson, Mr, Davidson, Colonel Olcott, 
and Madame Blavatsky. Most of the persons present having 
recently seen many remarkable occurrences m Madame 
Blavatsky's presence, conversation turned on occult pheno- 
mena, and in the course of this Madame Blavatsky asked 
Mrs. Hume if there was anything she particularly wished 
for. Mrs. Hume at first hesitated, but in a short time said 
there was something she would particularly like to have 
brought her, namely, a small article of jewellery that she 
formerly possessed, but had given away to a person who 
had allowed it to pass out of her possession. Madame 
' Blavatsky then said if she would fix the image of the article 
in question very definitely on her mind, she, Madame 
Blavatsky, would endeavour to procure it. Mrs. Hume then 
said that she vividly remembered the article, and described 
it as an old-fashioned breast-brooch set round with pearls, 
with glass at the front, and the back made to contain hair. 
She then, on being asked, drew a rough sketch of the brooch. 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 81 



Madame Blavatsky then wrapped up a coin attached to her 
watch-chain in two cigarette papers, and put it in her dress, 
and said that she hoped the brooch might be obtained in the 
course of the evening. At the close of dinner she said to 
Mr. Hume that the paper in which the com had been 
Wrapped was gone. A little later, in the drawingroom, she 
said that the brooch would not be brought into the house, 
but that it must be looked for in the garden, and then as 
the party went out accompanying her> she said she had 
clairvoyantly seen the brooch fall into a star-shaped bed of 
flowers. Mr. Hume led the way to such a bed in a distant 
part of the garden. A prolonged and careful search was 
made with lanterns, and eventually a small paper packet, 
consisting of two cigarette papers, was found amongst the 
leaves by Mrs. Sinnett. This being opened on the spot was 
found to contain a brooch exactly corresponding to the 
previous description, and which Mrs. Hume identified as 
that which she had originally lost. None of the party, 
except Mr. and Mrs. Hume, had ever seen or heard of the 
brooch. Mr. Hume had not thought of it for years. 
Mrs. Hume had never spoken of it to anyone since she 
parted with, it, nor had she, for long, even thought of it. 
She herself stated, after it was found, that it was only when 
Madame asked her whether there was anything she would 
like to have, that the remembrance of this brooch, the gift 
of her mother, flashed across her mind. 

"Mrs. Hume is not a spiritualist, and up to the time of 
the occurrence described was no believer either in occult 
phenomena or in Madame Blavatsky's powers. The con- 
viction of all present was, that the occurrence was of an 
absolutely unimpeachable character, as an evidence of the 
truth of the possibility of occult phenomena. The brooch is 
unquestionably the one which Mrs. Hume lost. Even sup- 
posing, which is practically impossible, that the article, lost 
months before Mrs. Hume ever heard of Madame Blavatsky, 
and bearing no letters or other indication of original owner- 
ship, could have passed in a natural way into Madame 
Blavatsky's possession, even then/ she could not possibly 
have foreseen that it would be asked for, and Mrs. Hume 
herself had not dven it a thought for months. 
4* 



82 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



"This narrative, read over to the party, is signed by — 



Patience Sinnett. 

It is needless to state that when this narrative 
was published the nine persons above mentioned 
were assailed with torrents of ridicule, the effect of 
which, however, has not been in any single case to 
modify, in the smallest degree, the conviction which 
their signatures attested at the time, that the inci- 
dent related w^as a perfectly conclusive proof of the 
reality of occult power. Floods of more or less 
imbecile criticism have been directed to show that 
the whole performance must have been a trick ; and 
for many persons in India it is now, no doubt, an 
established explanation that Mrs. Hume was 
adroitjy led up to ask for the particular article 
produced, by a quantity of preliminary talk about a 
feat which Madame Blavatsky specially went to the 
house to perform. A further established opinion 
with a certain section of the Indian public is, that 
the brooch w^hich it appears Mrs. Hume gave to 
her daughter, and which her daughter lost, must 
have been got from that young lady about a 
year previously, when she passed through Bombay, 
w r here Madame Blavatsky was living, on her way to 
England. The young lady's testimony to the effect 
that she lost the brooch before she went to Bombay, 
or ever saw Madame Blavatsky, is a little feature of 
this hypothesis which its contented framers do not 
care to inquire into. Nor do persons who think 



" A. O. Hume. 
M. A. Hume. 
Fred. R Hoog. 
A. P. Sinnett. 



Alice Gordon. 
P. J. Maitland. 
Wm. Davidson. 
Stuart Beatson. 



5> 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



83 



the fact that the brooch once belonged to Mrs. 
Hume's daughter, and that this young lady once 
saw Madame Blavatsky at Bombay, sufficiently 
"suspicious" to wipe out the effect of the whole 
incident as described above — ever attempt, as far 
as I have discerned, to trace out a coherent chain 
of events as illuminated by their suspicions, or to 
compare these with the circumstances of the brooch's 
actual recovery. No care, however, to arrange the 
circumstances of an occult demonstration so that 
the possibility of fraud and delusion may really be 
excluded, is sufficient to exclude the imputation of 
this afterwards by people for whom any argument, 
however illogical really, is good enough to attack a 
strange idea with. 

As regards the witnesses of the brooch pheno- 
menon the conditions were so perfect that when 
they were speculating as to the objections w T hich 
might be raised by the public when the story should 
come to be told, they did not foresee either of the 
objections actually raised afterwards— the leading up 
in conversation theory, and the theory about Miss 
Hume having put Madame Blavatsky in possession 
of the brooch. They knew that there had been no 
previous conversation at all about the brooch or any 
other proposed feat, that the idea about getting 
something Mrs. Hume should ask for, arose all in a 
moment, and that almost immediately afterwards, 
the brooch was named. As for Miss Hume having 
unconsciously contributed to. the production of the 
phenomenon, it did not occur to the witnesses that 
this would be suggested, because they did not foresee 
that any one could be so foolish as to shut their 



r 



84 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



eyes to the important circumstances, to concentrate 
their attention entirely on one of, quite mpor im- 
portance. As the statement itself says, even sup- 
posing, which is practically impossible, that the 
brooch could have passed into Madame Blavatsky's 
possession in a natural way, she could not possibly 
have foreseen that it would have been asked for. 

The only conjectures the witnesses could frame to 
explain beforehand the tolerably certain result that 
the public at large would refuse to be convinced by 
the brooch incident, were that they might be re- 
garded as misstating the facts and omitting some 
which the superior intelligence of their critics — as 
their critics would regard the matter — would see to 
upset the significance of the rest, or that Mrs. Hume 
must be a confederate. Xow, this last conjecture, 
which will no doubt occur to readers in England, 
had only to be stated, to be, for the other persons 
concerned in the incident, one of the most amusing 
results to which it could give rise. We all knew 
Mrs. Hume to be as little predisposed towards any 
such a conspiracy as she was morally incapable of 
the wrong-doing it would involve. 

At one stage of the proceedings, moreover, we 
had considered the question as to the extent to 
which the conditions of the phenomenon were satis- 
factory. It had often happened that faults had 
eventually been found with Madame Blavatsky's 
phenomena by reason of some oversight in the 
conditions that had not been thought of at first. 
One of our friends, therefore, on the occasion I am 
describing, had suggested, after we rose from the 
dinner-table, that before going any further the 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 85 

company generally should be asked whether, if the 
brooch could be produced, that would under the 
circumstances be a satisfactory proof of occult 
agency in the matter. We carefully reviewed the 
manner in which the situation had been developed, 
and we all came to the conclusion that the test 
would be absolutely complete, and that on this 
occasion there was no weak place in the chain of 
the argument. Then it was that Madame Blavatsky 
said the brooch would be brought to, the garden, and 
that we could go out and search for it. 

An interesting circumstance for those who had 
already watched some of the other; phenomena I 
have described was this : The brooch, as stated 
above, was found wrapped up in two cigarette 
papers, and these, when examined in a full light in 
the house, were found still to bear the mark of the 
coin attached to Madame Blavatzky's watch chain, 
which had been wrapped up in them before they 
departed on their mysterious errand. They were 
thus identified for people who had got over the 
first stupendous difficulty of believing in the pos- 
sibility of transporting material objects by occult 
agency as the same papers that had been seen by 
us at the dinner-table. 

The occult transmission of objects to a distance 
not being " magic, " as Western readers understand 
the word, is susceptible of some partial explanation 
even for ordinary readers, for whom the means by 
which the forces employed are manipulated must 
remain entirely mysterious. It is not contended 
that the currents which are made use of, convey the 
bodies transmitted in a solid mass just as they exist 



86 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



for the senses. The body, to be transmitted, is sup- 
posed first to be disintegrated, conveyed on the 
currents in infinitely minute particles, and then 
reintegrated at its destination. In the case of the 
brooch, the first thing to be done must have been 
to find it. This, however, would simply be a feat 
of clairvoyance — the scent of the object, so to 
speak, being taken up from the person who spoke of 
it and had once possessed it — and there is no clair- 
voyance of which the western world has any know- 
ledge, comparable in its vivid intensity to the 
clairvoyance of an adept in occultism. Its resting- 
place thus discovered, the disintegration process 
would come into play, and the object desired would 
be conveyed to the place where the adept engaged 
with it would choose to have it deposited. The 
part played in the phenomenon by the cigarette 
papers would be this : In order that we might be 
able to find the brooch, it w^s necessary to connect 
it by an occult scent with Madame Blavatsky. The 
cigarette papers, which she always carried about 
with her, were thus impregnated with her magnetism, 
and taken from her by the Brother, left an occult 
trail behind them. W rapped round the brooch, they 
conducted this trail to the required spot. 

The magnetization of the cigarette papers always 
with her, enabled Madame Blavatsky to perform a 
little feat with them which was found by everyone 
for whom it was done an exceedingly complete bit 
of evidence ; though here again the superficial 
resemblance of the experiment to a conjuring trick 
misled the intelligence of ordinary persons who 
read about the incidents referred to in the news- 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



37 



papers.^ The feat itself may be most conveniently 
discussed by the quotation of three letters which 
appeared in the Pioneer of the 23rd of October, 
and were as follows : — 

" Sir, — The account of the discovery of Mrs. Hume's 
brooch has called forth several letters, and many questions 
have been asked, some of which I may answer on a future 
occasion, but I think it only right to first contribute further 
testimony to the occult powers possessed by- Madame 
Blavatsky. In thus coming before the public, one must be 
prepared for ridicule, but it is a weapon which we who 
know something of these matters can well afford to despise. 
On Thursday last, at about half-past ten o'clock, I was 
sitting in Madame Blavatsky's room conversing with her, 
and in a casual way asked her if she would be able to send 
me anything by occult means when I returned to my home. 
She said "No;" and explained to me some of the laws under 
which she acts, one being that she must know the place and 
have been there — the more recently the better — in order to 
establish a magnetic current. She then recollected that she 
had been somewhere that morning, and after a moment's 
reflection remembered whose house it was she had visited.* 
She said she could send a cigarette there, if I would go at 
once to verify the fact. I, of course, consented. I must 
here mention that I had seen her do this kind of thing once 
before ; and the reason she gives for sending cigarettes is, 
that the paper and tobacco being always about her person, 
are highly magnetized, and therefore more amenable to her 
power, which she most emphatically declares is not super- 
natural, but merely the manifestation of laws unknown to 
us. To continue my story. She took out a cigarette paper 
and slowly tore off a corner as zigzag as possible, I never 
taking my eyes off her hands. She gave me the corner, 
which I at once put into an envelope, and it never left my 
possession I can declare. She made the cigarette with the 

* This house at which the cigarette was found was Mr. O'Meara's. 
He is quite willing that this should he stated. 



38 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



remainder of the paper. She then said she would try an 
experiment which might not succeed, hut the failure would 
be of no consequence with me. She then most certainly put 
that cigarette into the fire, and I saw it burn, and I started 
at once to the gentleman's house, scarcely able to believe 
that I should find in the place indicated by her the counter- 
part of the cigarette paper I had with me ; but sure enough 
there it was, and, in the presence of the gentleman and his 
wife, I opened out the cigarette and found my corner piece 
fitted exactly. It would be useless to try and explain any 
theory in connection with these phenomena, and it would be 
unreasonable to expect any one to believe in them, unless 
their own experience had proved the possibility of such 
wonders. All one asks or expects is, that a few of the more 
intelligent, members of the community may be led to look 
into the vast amount of evidence now accumulated of the 
phenomena taking place all over Europe and America. It 
seems a pity that the majority should be in such utter 
ignorance of these facts ; it is within the power of any one 
visiting England to convince himself of their truth. 

" Alice Gordon." 



"Sir, — I have been asked to give an account of a circum- 
stance which took place in my presence on the 13th instant. 
On the evening of that day I was sitting alone with Madame 
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in the drawing-room of Mr. 
Sinnett's house in Simla. After some conversation on 
various matters, Madame Blavatsky said she would like to 
try an experiment in a manner which had been suggested to 
her by Mr. Sinnett. She, therefore, took two cigarette papers 
from her pocket and marked on each of them a number of 
parallel lines in pencil. She then tore a piece off the end of 
each paper across^the lines, and gave them to me. At that 
time Madame Blavatsky was sitting close to me, and I in- 
tently watched her proceedings, my eyes being not more than 
two feet from her hands. She declined to let me mark or 
tear the papers, alleging that if handled by others they would 
become imbued with their personal magnetism, which would 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



89 



counteract her own. However, the torn pieces were handed 
directly to me, and I could not observe any opportunity for 
the substitution of other papers by sleight of hand. The 
genuineness or otherwise of the phenomena afterwards pre- 
sented appears to rest on this point. The tornoff pieces of the 
paper remained in my closed left hand until the conclusion of 
the experiment. Of the larger pieces Madame Blavatsky 
made two cigarettes, giving the first to me to hold while the 
other was being made up. I scrutinized this cigarette very 
attentively, in order to be able to recognize it afterwards. 
The cigarettes being finished, Madame Blavatsky stood up, 
and took them between her hands, which she rubbed to-r 
gether. After about twenty or thirty seconds, the grating 
noise of the paper, at first distinctly audible, ceased. She then 
said the current* is passing round this end of the room, and 
I can only send them somewhere near here. A moment afterr 
wards she said one had fallen on the piano, the other near 
that bracket. As I sat on a sofa with my back to the wall 
the piano was opposite, and the bracket, supporting a few 
pieces of china, was to the right, between it and the door, 
Both were in full view across the rather narrow room. The 
top of the piano was covered with piles of music books, and 
it was among these Madame Blavatsky thought a cigarette 
would be found. The books were removed, one by one, by 
myself, but without seeing anything. I then opened the 
piano, and found a cigarette on a narrow shelf inside it. This 
cigarette I took out and recognized as the one I had held in 
my hand. The other was found in a covered cup on the 
bracket. Both cigarettes were still damp where they had 
been moistened at the edges in the process of manufacture. 
I took the cigarettes to a table, without permitting them to 
be touched or even seen by Madame Blavatsky and Colonel 
Olcott. On being unrolled and smoothed out, the torn, 
jagged edges were found to fit exactly to the pieces that I 
had all this time retained in my hand. ^The pencil marks 

* The theory is that a current of what can only be called 
magnetism, can be made to convey objects, previously dissipated by 
the same force, to any distance, and in spite of the intervention 
of any amount of matter. 



9 o 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



also corresponded. It would therefore appear that the papers 
were actually the same as those I had seen torn. Both the 
papers are still in my possession. It may be added that 
Colonel Olcott sat near me with his back to Madame 
Blavatsky during the experiment, and did not move till it 
was concluded. 

"P. J. Maitlakd, Captain." 



"Sm, — With reference to the correspondence now filling 
your columns, on the subject of Madame Blavatsky 's recent 
manifestations, it may interest your readers if I record a 
striking incident which took place last week in my presence. 
I had occasion to call on Madame, and in the course of our 
interview she tore off a corner from a cigarette paper, asking 
me to hold the same, which I did. With the remainder 
of the paper she prepared a cigarette in the ordinary 
manner, and in a few moments caused this cigarette to dis- 
appear from her hands. We were sitting at the time in the 
drawing-room. I inquired if it were likely to find this 
cigarette again, and after a short pause Madame requested 
me to accompany her into the dining-room, where the ciga- 
rette would be found on the top of a curtain hanging over 
the window. By means of a table and a chair placed thereon, 
I was enabled with some difficulty to reach and take down a 
cigarette from the place indicated. This cigarette I opened, 
and found the paper to correspond exactly with that I had 
seen a few minutes before in the drawing-room. That is to 
say, the corner-piece, which I had retained in my possession, 
fitted exactly into the jagged edges of the torn paper in 
which the tobacco had been rolled. To the best of my belief, 
the test was as complete and satisfactory as any test can be. 
I refrain from giving my opinion as to the causes which pro- 
duced the effect, feeling sure that your readers who take an 
interest in these phenomena will prefer exercising their own 
judgment in the matter. I merely give you an unvarnished 
statement of what I saw. I may be permitted to add I am 
not a member of the Theosophist Society, nor, so far as I 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



know, am I biassed in favour of occult science, although a 
warm sympathizer with the proclaimed objects of the Society 
over which Colonel Olcott presides. 

"Charles Francis Massy." 

Of course, anyone familiar with conjuring will 
be aware that an imitation of this "trick" can be 
arranged by a person gifted with a little sleight of 
hand. You take two pieces of paper, and tear off 
a corner of both together, so that the jags of both 
are the same. You make a cigarette with one 
piece, and put it in the place where you mean to 
have it ultimately found. You then hold the other 
piece underneath the one you tear in presence of 
the spectator, slip in one of the already torn corners 
into his hand instead of that he sees you tear, 
make your cigarette with the other part of the 
original piece, dispose of that anyhow you please, 
and allow the prepared cigarette to be found. 
Other variations of the system may be readily 
imagined, and for persons who have not actually 
seen Madame Blavatsky do one of her cigarette 
feats it may be useless to point out that she does 
not do: them as a conjuror would, and that the 
spectator, if he is gifted with ordinary common 
sense, can never have the faintest shadow of a doubt 
about the corner given to him being the corner 
torn off — a certainty which the pencil-marks upon 
it, drawn before his eyes, would enhance, if that 
were necessary. However, as I say, though expe- 
rience shows me that the outsider is prone to regard 
the little cigarette phenomenon as " suspicious," 
it has never failed to be regarded as convincing by 
the most acute people among those who have 



Q2 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



witnessed it. With all phenomena, however, 
stupidity on the part of the observer will defeat 
any attempt to reach his understanding, no matter 
how perfect the tests supplied. 

I realize this more fully now than at the time of 
which I am writing. Then I was chiefly anxious 
to get experiments arranged which should be 
really complete in their details and leave no 
opening for the suggestion even of imposture. It 
was an uphill struggle first, because Madame 
Blavatsky was intractable and excitable as an ex- 
perimentalist, and herself no more than the reci- 
pient of favours from the Brothers in reference 
to the greater phenomena. And it seemed to me 
conceivable that the Brothers might themselves not 
always realize precisely the frame of mind in which 
persons of European training approached the con- 
sideration of such miracles as these with which we 
were dealing, so that they did not always make 
sufficient allowance for the necessity of rendering 
their test phenomena quite perfect and unassailable 
in all minor details. I knew, of course, that they 
were not primarily anxious to convince the common- 
place world of anything whatever ; but still .they 
frequently did assist Madame Blavatsky to produce 
phenomena that had no other motive except the pro- 
duction of an effect on the minds of people belonging 
to the outer world ; and it seemed to me that under 
these circumstances they might just as well do 
something that would leave no room for the impu- 
tation even of any trickery. 

One day, therefore, I asked Madame Blavatsky 
whether if T wrote a letter to one of the Brothers 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



explaining my views, she could get it delivered for 
me. I hardly thought this was probable, as I knew 
how very unapproachable the Brothers generally 
are ; but as she said that at any rate she would try, 
I wrote a letter, addressing it "to the Unknown 
Brother," and gave it to her to see if any result 
would ensue. It was a happy inspiration that 
induced me to do this, for out of that small begin- 
ning has arisen the most interesting correspondence 
in which I have ever been privileged to engage — a 
correspondence which, I am happy to say, still 
promises to continue, and the existence of which, 
more than any experiences of phenomena which I 
have had, though the most wonderful of these are 
yet to be described, is the raison d'etre of this little 
book. 

The idea I had specially in my mind when I 
wrote the letter above referred to, was that of all 
test phenomena one could wish for, the best would 
be the production in our presence in India of a 
copy of the London Times of that day's date. With 
such a piece of evidence in my hand, I argued, I 
would undertake to convert everybody in Simla 
who was capable of linking two ideas together, to 
a belief in the possibility of obtaining by occult 
agency physical results which were beyond the 
control of ordinary science. I am sorry that I 
have not kept copies of the letter itself nor of my 
own subsequent letters, as they would have helped 
to elucidate the replies in a convenient way ; but I 
did not at the time foresee the developments to 
which they would give rise and, after all, the 
interest of the correspondence turns almost entirely 



94 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



on the letters I received: only in a very small 
degree on those I sent. 

A day or two elapsed before I heard anything 
of the fate of my letter, but Madame Blavatsky 
then informed me that I was to have an answer. I 
afterwards learned that she had not been able at 
first to find a Brother willing to receive the com- 
munication. Those whom she first applied to 
declined to be troubled with the matter. At last 
her psychological telegraph brought her a favour- 
able answer from one of the Brothers with whom 
she had not for some time been in communication. 
He would take the letter and reply to it. 

Hearing this, I at once regretted that I had not 
written at greater length, arguing my view of the 
required concession more fully. I wrote again, 
therefore, without waiting for the actual receipt of 
the expected letter. 

A day or two after I found one evening on my 
writing-table the first letter sent me by my new 
correspondent. I may here explain, what I learned 
afterwards, that he was a native of the Punjab who 
was attracted to occult studies from his earliest 
boyhood. He was sent to Europe while still a 
youth at the intervention of a relative — himself an 
occultist — to be educated in Western knowledge, 
and since then has been fully initiated m the 
greater knowledge of the East. From the self- 
complacent point of view of the ordinary puropean 
this will seem a strange reversal of the proper order 
of things, but I need not stop to examine that 
consideration now. 

My correspondent is known to me as the Mahatma 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



95 



Koot Hoomi. 1 This is his " Tibetan Mystic name " 
— occultists, it would seem, taking new names on 
initiation — a practice which has no doubt given rise 
to similar customs which we find perpetuated here 
and there in ceremonies of the Roman Catholic 
church. 

The letter I received began, in medias res, about 
the phenomenon I had professed. " Precisely," 
the Mahatma wrote, " because the test of the 
London newspaper would close the mouths of the 
sceptics," it was inadmissible. " See it in s what 
light you will, the world is yet in its first stage 
of disenthralment .... hence unprepared. 
Yery true we work by natural, not supernatural, 
means and laws. But as on the one hand science 
would find itself unable, in its present state, to 
account for the wonders given in its name, and on 
the other the ignorant masses would still be left to 
view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle, 
everyone wdio would thus be made a witness to the 
occurrence would be thrown off his balance, and 
the result would be deplorable. Believe me it would 
be so especially for yourself, who originated the idea, 
and for the devoted woman who so foolishly rushes 
into the wide, open door leading to notoriety. This 
door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, 
would prove very soon a trap — and a fatal one, 
indeed, for her. And such is not surely your 
object .... "Were we to accede to your desires 
know you really what consequences would follow 
in the trail of success ? The - inexorable shadow 
which follows all human innovations moves on, yet 
few are they who are ever conscious of its approach 

1 See Appendix C. 



9 6 



THE OCCULT WORLD 



and dangers. What are, then, they to expect who 
would offer the world an innovation which, owing 
to human ignorance, if believed in, wdll surely be 
attribute to those dark agencies the two-thirds 
of humanity believe in and dread as yet? .... 
The success of an attempt of such a kind as the 
one you propose must be calculated and based 
upon a thorough knowledge of the people around 
you. It depends entirely upon the social and 
moral conditions of the people in their bearing on 
these deepest and most mysterious questions w r hich 
can stir the human mind — the deific powers in man 
and the possibilities contained in Nature. How 
many even of your best friends, of those who sur- 
round you, are more than superficially interested in 
these abstruse problems? You could count them 
upon the fingers of your right hand. Tour race 
boasts of having liberated in their century the * 
genius so long imprisoned in the narrow vase of 
dogmatism and intolerance — the genius of know- 
ledge, wisdom, and free thought. It says that, in 
their turn, ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry, 
bottled up like the wicked djin of old, and sealed 
by the Solomons of science, rest at the bottom of 
the sea, and can never, escaping to the surface 
again, reign over the world as in the days of 
old : that the public mind is quite free, in short, 
and ready to accept any demonstrated truth. 
Ay, but is it verily so, my respected friend ? 
Experimental knowledge does not quite date from 
1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle, and the Bishop 
of ..Chester transformed under the royal charter 
their ' invisible college' into a society for the pro- 



FIRST OCCULT EXPEK 



97 



motion of experimental science. >re the 
Royal Society found itself becorc y upon 
the plan of the 6 Prophetic S, innate 
longing for the hidden, a passio or, and 
the study of, Nature, had led me in every genera- 
tion to try and fathom her secret ii their 
neighbours did. Roma ante Ro t is an 
axiom taught us in your Engl .... 
The Vril of the Coming Race wj on pro- 
perty of races now extinct. And as • e very 
existence of those gigantic ancestors of < in is now 
questioned — though in the Him .e very 
territory belonging to you, we ^e full 
of the skeletons of these giant r huge 
frames, when found, are inva ded as 
{ isolated freaks of Nature — so the s as we 
call it, is looked upon as an imj t myth. 
And without a thorough knowledge :as — its 
combinations and properties, hov e hope 
to account for such phenomena ibt not 
but the men of your science are bpeti to action; 
yet facts must be first demonstr l ; they 
must first have become their o 1 r, have 
proved amenable to their mode igation, 



before you find them ready to admit them as facts.; 
If you but look into the preface to t ! ogr aphid 

you will find, in Hookes' sugj that the 

intimate relations of objects were account 
in his eyes than their externa ion on the 

senses, and Newton's fine discc m d in him 
their greatest opponent. Th( >der lookeses 
are many. Like this learned 1 . man of 

old, your modern men of scienc ixious to 

5 



98 E OCCULT WORLD. 

sugges connection of facts which might 

unlock many an occult force in Nature, as 

to pre /enient classification of scientific 

experi: at the most essential quality of a 

hypotl that it should be true, but^only 

plausii opinion. 

" So ence — as much as we know of it. 
As for Lire in general it is the same now 
as it ^ l of years ago. Prejudice, based 
upon s general unwillingness to give up 
an esta r of things for new modes of life 
and th( occult study requires all that and 
much i and stubborn resistance to truth, 
if it b leir previous notions of things — 
such are aracteristics of your age. v.. . . 
What, Id be the results of the most 
astounc aena supposing we consented to 
have them 3d? However successful, danger 
would g proportionately with success. 
No ch( soon remain but to go on, ever 
crescen* ill in this endless struggle with 
prejudi 'ance, killed by your own weapons. 
Test af id be required, and would have to 
be fur ;ry subsequent phenomenon ex- 
pected marvellous than the preceding 
one. 1 remark is, that one cannot be 
expecte e unless he becomes an eye-wit- 
ness. ' ifetime of a man suffice to satisfy 
the wh »f sceptics? It may be an easy 
matter bo in< 1 the original number of believers 
at Siml ids and thousands. But what of 
the hui llions of those who could not be 
made ej The ignorant, unable to grapple 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



with the invisible operators, might some day vent 
their rage on the visible agents at work ; the higher 
and educated classes would go on disbelieving, as 
ever, tearing you to shreds as before. In common 
with many," you blame us for our great secresy 
"Yet we know something of human nature, for the 
experience of lon^ centuries — ay, ages, has taught 
us. And we know that so long as science has any- 
thing to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism 
lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's 
prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at 
a rush. As hoary antiquity had more than one 
Socrates, so the dim future will give birth to more 
than one martyr. Enfranchished Science contemp- 
tuously turned away her face from the Copernican 
opinion renewing the theories of Aristarchus 
Samius, who 4 affirmeth that the earth moveth 
circularly about her own centre, 5 years before the 
Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to 
• the Bible. The ablest mathematician at the Court 
of Edward VI., Robert Recorde, was left to starve 
in 'jail by his colleagues, who laughed at his Castle 
of Knowledge, declaring his discoveries vain phan- 
tasies .... All this is old history, you will think. 
Verily so, but the chronicles of our modem days do 
not differ very essentially from their predecessors. 
And we have but to bear in mind the recent per- 
secutions of mediums in England, the burning of 
supposed witches and sorcerers in South America, 
Russia, and the frontiers of Spain, to assure our- 
selves that the only salvation of the genuine pro- 
ficient in occult sciences lies in the scepticism of 
the public : the charlatans and the jugglers are the 



IOO 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



natural shields of the adepts. The public safety is 
only ensured by our keeping secret the terrible 
weapons which might otherwise be used against it, 
and which, as you have been told, become deadly in 
the hands of the wicked and selfish." 

The remainder of the letter is concerned chiefly 
with personal matters, and need not be here re- 
produced. I shall, of course, throughout my quota- 
tions from letters, leave out passages which, specially 
addressed to myself, have no immediate bearing on 
the public argument. The reader must be careful 
to remember, however, as I now most unequivocally 
affirm, that I shall in no case alter one syllable of 
the passages actually quoted. It is important to 
make this declaration very emphatically, because the 
more my readers may be acquainted with India, the 
less they will be willing to believe, except on the 
most positive testimony, that the letters from the 
Mahatma, as I now publish them, have been written 
by a native of India. That such is the fact, how- 
ever, is beyond dispute. 

I replied to the letter above quoted at some 
length, arguing, if I remember rightly, that the 
European mind was less hopelessly intractable than 
Koot Hoomi represented it. His second letter was 
as follows : — 

" We will be at cross purposes in our correspon- 
dence until it has been made entirely plain that 
occult science has its own methods of research, as 
fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis, 
physical science, are in their way. If the latter 
has its dicta, so also have the former ; and he who 



FIRST OCCULT EX PER. 



would cross the boundary of the unst 
no more prescribe how he will proceea. thai 
traveller who tries to penetrate to the innex 
ranean recesses of L'Hassa the Blessed could i 
the way to his guide. The mysteries never 'were, 
never can be, put within the reach of the general 
public, not, at least, until that longed-for day when 
our religious philosophy becomes universal. At no 
time have more than a scarcely appreciable minority 
of men possessed Nature's secret, though multitudes 
have witnessed the practical evidences of the possi- 
bility of their possession. The adept is the rare 
efflorescence of a generation of inquirers; and to 
become one, he must obey the inward impulse of 
his soul, irrespective of the prudential considerations 
of worldly science or sagacity. Your desire is to 
be brought to communicate w^ith one of us directly, 
without the agency of either Madame Blavatsky or 
any medium. Your idea would be, as I understand 
it, to obtain such communications, either by letters, 
as the present one, or by audible words, so as to be 
guided by one of us in the management, - and prin- 
cipally in the instruction of the Society. You seek 
all this, and yet, as you say j^ourself, hitherto you 
have not found sufficient reasons to even give up 
your modes of life, directly hostile to such modes of 
communication. This is hardly reasonable. He 
who would lift up high the banner of mysticism and 
proclaim its reign near at hand must give the ex- 
ample to others. He must be the first to change 
his modes of life, and, regarding the study of the 
occult mysteries as the upper step in the ladder of 
knowledge, must loudly proclaim it such, despite 



102 >, 



THE OCCULT WORLD 



and the opposition of society. 'The 
. of Heaven is obtained by force, 5 say the 
dan mystics. It is but with armed hand, and 

ay to either conquer or perish, that the modern 
mystic can hope to achieve his object. 

" My first answer covered, I believe, Inost of the 
questions contained in your secojid and even third 
letter. Having, then, expressed therein my opinion 
that the world in general was unripe for any too 
staggering proof of occult power, there but remains 
to deal with the isolated individuals who seek, like 
yourself, to penetrate behind the veil of matter into 
the world of primal causes — i. e. y we need only con- 
sider now the cases of yourself and Mr. 

I should here explain that one of my friends at 
Simla, deeply interested with me in the progress of 
this investigation, had, on reading Koot Hoomi's 
first letter to me, addressed my correspondent him- 
self. More favourably circumstanced than I, for 
such an enterprise, he had even proposed to make 
a complete sacrifice of his other pursuits, to pass 
away into any distant seclusion which might be 
appointed for the purpose, where he might, if ac- 
cepted as a pupil in occultism, learn enough to 
return to the world armed with powers which would 
enable him to demonstrate the realities of spiritual 
development and the errors of modern materialism, 
and then devote his life to the task of combating 
modern incredulity and leading men to a practical 
comprehension of a better life. I resume the let- 
ter : — 

" This gentleman also has done me the great 
honour to address me by name, offering to me a 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



few questions, and stating the conditions upon 
which he would be willing to work for us seriously. 
But your motives and aspirations being of diametri- 
cally opposite character, and hence leading to dif- 
1 ferent results, I must reply to each of you sepa- 
rately. 

" The first and chief consideration in determining 
us to' accept or reject your oflEer lies in the inner 
. motive which propels you to seek our instruction 
and, in a certain sense, our guidance ; the latter in 
all cases under reserve, as I understand it, and 
therefore remaining a question independent of aught 
else. Now, what are your motives? I may try 
to define them in their general aspects, leaving 
details for further consideration. They are — (1) 
The, desire to see positive and unimpeachable proofs 
that there really are forces in Nature of which 
science knows nothing; (2) The hope to appro- 
priate them some day — the sooner the better, for 
you do not like to wait — so as to enable yourself ; 
(a) to demonstrate their existence to a few chosen 
Western minds ; (5) to contemplate future life as 
an objective reality built upon the rock of know- 
ledge, not of faith ; and (c) to finally learn —most 
important this, among all your motives, perhaps, 
though the most occult and the best guarded — the 
whole truth about our lodges and ourselves ; to get, 
in short, the positive assurance that the 6 Brothers/ 
of whom everyone hears so much and sees so little, 
are real entities, not fictions of a disordered, hallu- 
cinated brain. Such, viewed in their best light, 
appear to us your motives for addressing me. And 
in the same spirit do I answer them, hoping tha> 



104 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



my sincerity will not be interpreted in a wrong 
way, or attributed to anything like an unfriendly 
spirit. 

"To onr minds, then, these motives, sincere and 
worthy of every serious consideration from the 
worldly standpoint, appear selfish. (You have to 
pardon me what you might \iew as crudeness of 
language, if your desire is that which you really 
profess — to learn truth and get instruction from us. 
who belong to quite a different world from the 
one you move in.) They are selfish, because you 
must be aware that the chief object of the Theo- 
sophical Society is not so much to gratify individual 
aspirations as to serve our fellow-men, and the real 
value of this term v . 6 selfish,' which may jar upon 
your ear, has a peculiar significance with us which 
it cannot have with you ; therefore, to begin with, 
you must not accept it otherwise than in the former 
sense. .Perhaps you will better appreciate our 
meaning when told that in our view the highest 
aspirations 1 for the welfare of humanity become 
tainted with selfishness, if, in the mind of the 
philanthropist, there lurks the shadow of a desire 
for self-benefit, or a tendency to do injustice, even 
where thqse exist unconsciously to himself. Yet 
you have ever discussed, but to put down, the idea 
of a Universal Brotherhood, questioned its useful- 
ness, and advised to remodel the Theosophical 
Society on the principle of a college for the special 
study of occultism 

"Having disposed of personal motives, let us 
analyze your terms for helping us to do public 
^[>od. Broadly stated, these terms are — first, that an 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 105 

independent Anglo - Indian Theosopbical Society 
shall be founded through your kind services, in the 
j management of > which neither of our present repre- 
sentatives, shall have any voice and second, that 
one of us shall take the new body ' under his 
patronage, 5 be ' in free and direct communication 
with its leaders,' and afford them ' direct proof that 
he really possessed that superior knowledge of the 
forces of Nature and the attributes of the human 
soul w T hich would inspire them with proper con- 
fidence in his leadership. 5 I have copied your own 
words so as to avoid inaccuracy in defining the 
position. 

" From your point of view, therefore, those terms 
may seem so very reasonable as to provoke no 
dissent, and, indeed, a majority of your countrymen 
—if not of Europeans- — might share that opinion. 
What, will you say, can be more reasonable than 
to ask. that that teacher anxious to disseminate his 
knowledge, and pupil offering him to do so, should 
be brought face to face, and the one give the, ex- 
perimental proof to the other that his instructions 
were correct? Man of the world, living in, and in 

*In the absence of my own letter, to which this is a reply, the 
reader might think from this sentence that I had been animated by 
some unfriendly feeling for the representatives referred to — Madame 
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott. This is far from, having been 
the case ; but, keenly alive to mi-stakes which had been made"' up 
to the time of, which I am writing, in the management of the 
Theosophical Society, Mr. and myself were under • the im- 

pression that better public results might be obtained" by commencing 
operations de novo, and taking, ourselves, the direction of the measures 
which might be employed to recommend the study of occultism to 
the modern world. This belief on our part was co-existent in both 
cases with a warm friendship based on the purest esteem for both 
the persons mentioned. 

5* 



\ 

106 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

full sympathy with it, you are undoubtedly right. 
But the men of this other world of ours, untutored 
in your modes of thought, and who find it very hard 
at times to follow and appreciate the latter, can 
hardly be blamed for not responding as heartily to 
your suggestions as in your opinion they deserve. 
The first and most important of our objections is to 
be found in our rules. True, we have our schools 
and teachers, our neophytes and i shaberons' (superior 
adepts) and the door is always opened to the right 
man who knocks. And we invariably/welcome the 
new comer; only, instead of going over to him, he 
has to come to us. More thain that, unless he has 
reached that point in the path of occultism from 
which return is impossible by his having irrevocably 
pledged himself to our Association, we never— ex- 
cept in cases of utmost moment — visit him or even 
cross the threshold of his door in visible appearance. 

"Is any of you so eager for knowledge and the 
beneficent powers it confers, as to be ready to leave 
your world and come into ours? Then let him 
come, but he must not think to return until the 
seal of the mysteries has locked his hps even against 
the chances of his own weakness or indiscretion.- 
Let him come by all means as the pupil to the 
master, and without conditions, or let him wait, as 
so many^ others have, and be satisfied with such 
crumbs of knowledge as may fall in his way. 

"And supposing you were thus to come, as 
two of your own countrymen have already — as 
Madame B. did and Mr. O. will — supposing yon 
were to abandon all for the truth ; to toil wearily 
for years up the hard, steep road, not daunted by 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 107 

r obstacles, firm under every temptation ; were to 
faithfully keep within your heart the secrets en- 
trusted to you as a trial ; had worked with all your 
energies and unselfishly to spread the truth and 
provoke men to correct thinking and a correct life 
— would you consider it just, if, after all your 
efforts, we were to grant to Madame B., or 
Mr. O. as i outsiders ' the terms you now ask for 
yourselves. Of these two persons, one has already 
given three-fourths of a life, the other six years of 
manhood's prime to us, and both will so labour to 
the close of their days ^ though ever working for 
their merited reward, yet never demanding it, nor 
murmuring when disappointed. Even though they 
respectively could accomplish far less then they do, 
would it not be a palpable injustice to ignore them 
in an important field of Theosophical effort ? 
Ingratitude is not among our vices, nor do we 
imagine you would wish to advise it. 

" Neither of thern has the least inclination to 
interfere with the management of the contemplated 
Anglo-Indian Branch, nor dictate its officers. But 
the- new Society, if formed at all, must, though 
bearing a distinctive title of its own, be, in fact, a 
branch of the parent body, as is the British 
Theosophical Society at London, and contribute to 
its vitality and usefulness by promoting its leading 
idea of a Universal Brotherhood, and in other 
practicable ways. 

" Badly as the phenomena may have been shown, 
there have still been, as yourself admit, certain ones 
that are unimpeachable. The ' raps on the table 
when no one touches it/ and the ' bell sounds in 



108 THE OCCULT WORLD, 

the air,' have, you say, always been regarded as 
satisfactory, &c. &c. From this, you reason that 
good test phenomena ' may easily be multiplied ad 
infinitum? So they can — in any place where our 
magnetic and other conditions are constantly 
offered, and where we do not have to act with and 
through an enfeebled female body, in which, as we 
might say, a vital cyclone is raging much of the 
time. But imperfect as may be our visible agent, 
yet she is the best available v at present, and her 
phenomena have for about half a century astonished 
and baffled some of the cleverest minds of the age. 

Two or three little notes which I next received 
from the Mahatma had reference to an incident I 
must now describe, the perfection of which as a test 
phenomenon appears to me more complete than that 
of any other I have yet described. It is worth 
notice, by-the-bye, that although the circumstances 
of this incident were related in the Indian papers- 
at the time, the happy company of scoffers who 
flooded the Press with their simple comments on the 
brooch phenomenon, never cared to discuss " the 
pillow incident." 

Accmopanied by our guests, we went to have 
lunch one day on the top of a neighbouring hill. 
The night before, I had had reason to think that 
my correspondent, Koot Hoomi, had been in what, 
for the purpose of the present explanation, I may 
call subjective communication with me. I do not 
go into any details, because it is unnecessary to 
trouble the general reader with impressions of that 
sort. After discussing the subject in the morning, 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 109 

X found on the hall -table a note from Koot Hoomi, 
in which he promised to give me something on the 
hill which should be a token of his (astral) presence 
near me the previous night. 

¥e went to our destination, camped down on 
the top of the hill, and were engaged on our lunch, 
when Madame Blavatsky said Koot Hoomi was 
asking where we would like to find the object he 
was going to send me. Let it be understood that 
up to this moment there had been no conversation 
in regard to the phenomenon I was expecting. The 
usual suggestion will, perhaps, be made that Madame 
Blavatsky "led up" to the, choice I actually made. 
The fact of the matter was simply that in the midst 
of altogether other talk Madame Blavatsky pricked 
up her ears on hearing her occult voice — at onc@ 
told me what was the question asked, and did not 
contribute to the selection made by one single 
remark on the subject. In fact, there w T as no 
general discussion, and it was by an absolutely 
spontaneous choice of my own that I said, after a 
little reflection, " inside that cushion," pointing to 
one against which one of the ladies present was 
leaning. - I had no sooner uttered the words than 
my wife cried out, " Oh no, let it be inside mine," 
or words to that effect. I said, " very well, inside 
my wife's cushion ; " Madame Blavatsky asked the 
Mahatma by her own methods if that would do, and 
received an affirmative reply. My liberty of choice 
as regards the place where the object should be 
found was thus absolute and unfettered by condi- 
tions. The most natural choice for me to have 
made under the circumstances, and having regard 



no 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



to our previous experiences, would have been up 
some particular tree, or buried in a particular spot 
of the ground ; but the inside of a sewn-up cushion, 
fortuitously chosen on the spur of a moment, struck 
me, as my eye happened to fall upon the cushion I 
mentioned first, as a particularly good place; and 
when I had started the idea of a cushion, my wife's 
amendment to the original proposal was really an 
improvement, for the particular cushion then selected 
had never been for a moment out of her own pos- 
session all the morning. It was her usual jampan 
cushion; she had been leaning against it all the 
way from home, and was leaning against it still, as 
her jampan had been carried right up to the top of 
the hill, and she had continued to occupy it. The 
cushion itself was very firmly made of worsted 
work and velvet, and had been in our possession 
for years. It always remained, when we were at 
home, in the drawing-room, in a conspicuous corner 
of a certain sofa whence, when my wife went out, it 
would be taken to her jampan and again brought 
in on her return. 

When the cushion was agreed to, my wife was told 
to put it under her rug, and she did this with her 
own hands, inside her jampan. It may have been 
there about a minute, when Madame Blavatsky said 
we could set to work to cut it open. I did this 
with a penknife, and it was a work of some time, as 
the cushion was very securely sewn all round, and very 
strongly, so that it had to be cut open almost stitch 
by stitch, and no tearing was possible. When one side 
of the cover was completely ripped up, we found that 
the feathers of the cushion were enclosed in a separate 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. in 

inner case, also sewn round all the edges. There was 
nothing to be found between the inner cushion and the 
outer case ; so we proceeded to rip up the inner cushion; 
and this done, my wife searched among the feathers. 

The first thing she found was a little three- 
cornered note, addressed to me in the now familiar 
handwriting of my occult correspondent. It ran 
as follows : — 

" My ' dear Brother, ' — This brooch, No. 2, is 
placed in this very strange place, simply to show 
you how very easily a real phenomenon is produced, 
> and how still easier it is to suspect its genuineness. 
Make of it what you like, even to classing me w T ith 
confederates. 

" The difficulty you spoke of last night with respect 
to the interchange of our letters, 1 will try to 
remove. One of our pupils will shortly visit 
Lahore and the N. W. P. ; and an address will be 
sent to you which you can always use; unless, 
indeed, you really would prefer corresponding through 
— pillows ! Please to remark that the present is not 
dated from a ' Lodge, ' but from a Kashmere valley." 

While I was reading this note, my wife dis- 
covered, by further search among the feathers, the 
brooch referred to, one of her own, a very old and 
very familiar brooch which she generally left on 
her dressing-table when it was not in use. It 
would have been impossible to invent or imagine a 
proof of occult power, in the nature of mechanical 
proofs, more irresistible and convincing than 
this incident w T as for us who had personal know- 
ledge of the various circumstances described. The 
whole force and significance to us of the brooch 



112 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



thus returned, hinged on to my subjective 
impressions of the previous night. The reason for 
selecting the brooch as a thing to give us, dated 
no earlier than then. On the hypothesis, therefore, 
idiotic hypothesis as it would be on all grounds, 
that the cushion must have been got at by Madame 
Blavatsky, it must have been got at since I spoke 
of my impressions that morning, shortly after 
breakfast ; but from the time of getting up that 
morning, Madame Blavatsky had hardly been out of 
our sight, and had been sitting with my wife in 
the drawing-room. She had been doing this, by-the- 
bye, against the grain, for she had writing which 
she wanted to do in her own room, but she had 
been told by her voices to go and sit in the 
drawing-room with my wife that morning, and had 
done so, grumbling at the interruption of her work, 
and wholly unable to discern any motive for the 
order. The motive was afterwards clear enough, and 
had reference to the intended phenomenon. It 
was desirable that we should have no arriere 
pensee in our minds as to what Madame Blavatsky 
might possibly have been doing during the 
morning, in the event of the incident taking such a 
turn as to make that a factor in determining its 
genuineness. Of course, if the selection of the pillow 
could have been foreseen, it would have been un- 
necessary to victimize our " old Lady, " as we 
generally called her. The presence of the famous pillow 
itself, with my wife all the morning in the drawing- 
room, would have been enough. But perfect liberty 
of choice was to be left to me in selecting a cache 
for the brooch; and the pillow can have been in 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



Ix 3 



nobody's mind, any more than in my own, before- 
hand. 

The language of the note given above embodied 
many little points which had a meaning for us. 
All through, it bore indirect reference to the 
conversation that had taken place at our dinner- 
table the previous evening. I had been talking of 
the little traces here and there which the long 
letters from Koot Hoomi bore, showing in spite of 
their splendid mastery over the language and the 
vigour of their style, a turn or two of expression 
that an Englishman would not have made use of ; 
for example, in the form of address, which in the 
two letters already quoted had been tinged with 
Orientalism. u But what should he have written ?" 
somebody asked, and I had said, u under similar 
circumstances an Englishman would probably have 
written simply : " My dear Brother." Then the 
allusion to the Kashmir Valley as the place from 
which the letter was written, instead of from a 
Lodge, was an allusion to the same conversation; 
and the underlining of the " k " was another, as 
Madame Blavatsky had been saying that Koot 
Hoomi's spelling of " Skepticism " with a " k " was 
not an Americanism in his case, but due to a 
philological whim of his. 

The incidents of the day were not quite over, 
even when the brooch was found ; for that even- 
ing, after we had gone home, there fell from my 
napkin, after I had unfolded it at dinner, a little 
note, too private and personal to be reprinted fully, 
but part of which I am impelled to quote, for the 
sake of the allusion it contains, to occult modus 



H4 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



operandi. I must explain that, before starting for 
the hill, I had penned a few lines of thanks for the 
promise contained in the note then received as des- 
cribed. This note I gave to Madame Blavatskv, to 
despatch by occult methods if she had an oppor- 
tunity. And she carried it in her hand as she and 
my wife went on in advance, in jampans, along the 
Simla Mall, not finding an opportunity until about 
half-way to our destination. Then she got rid of 
the note, occultism only knows how. This circum- 
stance had been spoken of at the picnic ; and as I 
was opening the note found in the pillow, someone 
suggested that it would, perhaps, be found to con- 
tain an answer to my note just sent. It did not 
contain any allusion to this, as the reader will be 
already aware. 

The note I received at dinner-time said: — "A 
few words more. Why should you have felt dis- 
appointed at not receiving a direct reply to your 
last note. It was received in my room about half a 
minute after the currents for the production of the 
pillow dak, had been set ready, and in full play. 
And there was no necessity for an answer. ..." 

It seemed to bring one in imagination one step 
nearer a realization of the state of the facts to hear 
" the currents " employed to accomplish w T hat would 
have been a miracle for all the science of Europe, 
spoken of thus familiarly. 

A miracle for all the science of Europe, and as 
hard a fact for us, nevertheless, as the room in which 
we sat. We knew that the phenomenon we had 
seen was a wonderful reality ; that the thought- 
power of a man in Kashmir had picked up a 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



material object from a table in Simla, and, g.o.xu- 
tegrating it by some process of which "Western 
science does not yet dream, had passed it through 
other matter, and had there restored it to its original 
solidarity, the dispersed particles resuming their 
precise places as before, and reconstituting the 
object down to every line or scratch upon its sur- 
face. (By-the-by, it bore some scratches when it 
emerged from the pillow which it never bore before 
— the initials of our friend.) And we knew that 
written notes on tangible paper had been flashing 
backwards and forwards that day between our 
friend and ourselves, though hundreds of miles of 
Himalayan mountains intervened between us, and 
had been flashing backwards and forwards with the 
speed of electricity. And yet we knew that an im- 
penetrable wall, built up of its own prejudice and 
obstinacy, of its learned ignorance and polished 
dulness, was established round the minds of scien- 
tific men in the West, as a body, across which we 
should never be able to carry our facts and our ex- 
perience. And it is with a greater sense of oppres- 
sion than people who have never been in a similar 
position will realize, that I now tell the story I have 
to tell, and know all the while that the solemn ac- 
curacy of its minutest detail, the utter truthfulness 
of every syllable in this record, is little better than 
incense to my own conscience — that the scientific 
minds of the West with which of all cultivated minds 
my own has hitherto been most in sympathy, will be 
closed to my testimony most hopelessly. " Though one 
should rise from the dead, " &c. It is the old story. 
It is the old story, at all events as regards the 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



crashing results on opinion which such evidence as 
that I have been giving, ought to have. The smile 
of incredulity which thinks itself so wise and 
is so foolish, the suspicions which flatter them- 
selves they are so cunning, and are really the 
fruit of so much dulness, w T ill gleam over these 
pages, and wither all their meaning — for the readers 
who smile. But I suppose that Koot Hoomi is not 
only right in declaring the world unripe as yet for 
too staggering a proof of occult power, but also in 
taking a friendly interest, as it will be seen presently 
that he does, in the little book I am writing, as one 
of the influences which bit by bit may sap the 
foundations of dogmatism and stupidity, on which 
science, which thinks itself so liberal, has latterly 
become so firmly rooted. 

The next letter — the third long one — that I re- 
ceived from the Mahatma, reached me shortly after 
my return for the cold weather to Allahabad. But I 
received one communication from him — a telegram 
— before its arrival, on the day of my own return to 
Allahabad. This telegram, of no great importance 
as regards its contents, which were little more than 
an expression of thanks for some letters I had 
written in the papers, was, nevertheless, of great 
interest indirectly, affording me, as it ultimately did, 
evidence of a kind which could appeal to other 
minds besides my own, that Koot Hoomi's letters 
were not, as some ingenious persons may have been 
inclined to imagine — in spite of various mechanical 
difficulties in the way of the theory — the work of 
Madame Blavatsky. For me, knowing her as inti- 
mately as I did, the inherent evidence of the 



FIRST OCCULT EXPF 



style was enough to make the sug^ 
mii>ht have written them, a meie absu 
if it is urged that the authoress of " Isis I 
has certainly a command of language which j 
it difficult to say what she could not write, 
answer is simple. In the production of this boo A 
she was so largely helped by the Brothers, that 
great portions of it are not really her work at all. 
She never makes any disguise of this fact, though it 
is one of a kind which it is useless for her to pro- 
claim to the world at large, as it would be perfectly 
unintelligible, except to persons who knew something 
of the external facts, at all events, of occultism. Koot 
Hoomi' s letters, as I say, are perfectly unlike her own 
style. But, in reference to some of them, receiving 
them as I did while she was in the house with 
me, it was not mechanically possible that she 
might have been the writer. Now, the telegram I 
received at Allahabad, which was wired to me from 
Jhelum, was in reply specially to a letter I addressed 
to Koot Hoomi just before leaving Simla, and enclosed 
to Madame Blavatsky, who had started some days 
previously, and was then at Amritsur. She received 
the letter, with its enclosure, at Amritsur on the 
27th of October, as I came to know, not merely 
frdm knowing when I sent it, but positively by 
means of the envelope which she returned to me at 
Allahabad by direction of Koot Hoomi, not in the 
least knowing why he wished it sent to me. I did 
not at first see what on earth was the use of the old 
envelope to me, but I put it away and afterwards 
obtained the clue to the idea in Koot Hoomi's mind 
when Madame Blavatsky wrote me word that he 



n8 



r 7LT WORLD. 



^ the original of the Jhelum 
ugh the agency of a friend connected 
xinistration of the telegraph department, 
cabled eventually to obtain a sight of the 

;inal of the telegram- — a message of about twenty 
v^ords ; and then I saw the meaning of the envelope. 
The message was in Koot Hoomi's own handwriting, 
and it was an answer from Jhelum to a letter 
which the delivery post-mark on the envelope showed 
to have been delivered at Amritsur on the same day 
the message was sent. Madame Blavatsky assuredly 
was herself at Amritsur on that date, seeing large 
numbers of people there in connection with the work 
of the Theosophical Society, and the handwriting of 
Koot Hoomi's letters, nevertheless, appears on a tele- 
gram undeniably handed in at the Jhelum office on 
that date. So, although some of Koot Hoomi's 
letters passed through her hands to me, she is proved 
not to be their writer, as she is certainly not the 
producer of their handwriting. 

Koot Hoomi was probably himself actually at or 
near Jhelum at the time, as he came down into the 
midst of the world for a few days, under peculiar 
circumstances, to see Madame Blavatsky i the letter 
I received at Allahabad shortly after my return 
explained this. 

Madame Blavatsky had been deeply hurt by the 
behaviour of some incredulous persons at Simla 
whom she had met at our house and elsewhere, who, 
being unable to assimilate the experience they had 
had of her phenomena, got by degrees into that 
hostile frame of mind which Is one of the phases of 
feeling I am now used to seeing developed. Per- 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



119 



fectly unable to show how the phenomena can be 
the result of fraud, but thinking that, because they 
do not understand them, they must be fraudulent, 
people of a certain temperament become possessed 
with the spirit which animated persecution by reli- 
gious authorities in the infancy of physical science. 
And, by a piece of bad luck, a gentleman who was 
thus affected was annoyed at a trifling indiscretion on - 
the part of Colonel Olcott, who, in a letter to one 
of the Bombay papers, quoted some expressions he 
had made use of in praise of the TheosophicaL 
Society and its good influence on the natives. 
All the irritation thus set up, worked on Madame 
Blavatsky's excitable temperament to an extent 
which only those who know her will be able to 
imagine. The allusions irl Koot Hoomi's letter will 
now be understood. After some reference to impor- 
tant business with which he had been concerned 
since writing to me last, Koot Hoomi went on : — 

" You see, then, that we have weightier matters 
than small societies to think about ; yet the Theo- 
sophical Society must not be neglected. The affair 
has taken an impulse which, if not well guided, 
might beget very evil issues. Recall to mind the 
avalanches of your admired Alps, and remember 
that at first their mass is small, and their momentum 
little. A trite comparison, you may say, but I can- 
not think of a better illustration when viewing the 
gradual aggregation of trifling events growing into 
a menacing destiny for the Theosophical Society. 
It came quite forcibly upon me the other day as I 
was coming down the defiles of Konenlun — Kara- 
korum you call them — and saw an avalanche tumble. 



120 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



I had gone personally to our chief .... and was 
crossing over to Lhadak on my way home. What 
other speculations might have followed I cannot 
say. But just as I was taking advantage of the 
awful stillness which usually follows such cataclysms, 
to get a clearer view of the present situation, and 
the disposition of the ' mystics ' at Simla, I was 
rudely recalled to my senses. A familiar voice, as 
shrill as the one attributed to Saraswati's pea- 
cock — which, if we may credit tradition, frightened 
off the King of the Nagas — shouted along the 
currents — " .... Koot Hoomi, come quicker and 
help me ! " and, in her excitement, forgot she was 
speaking English. I must say that the 6 old 
Lady's ' telegrams do strike one like stones from a 
catapult. 

" What could I do but come. Argument through 
space with one who was in cold despair and in a 
state of moral chaos, was useless. So I determined 
to emerge from a seclusion of many years, and spend 
some time with her to comfort her as well as I 
could. But our friend is not one to cause her mind 
to reflect the philosopical resignation of Marcus 
Aurelius. The Fates never wrote that she could 
say : — i It is a royal thing when one is doing good 
to hear evil spoken of himself.'' I had come for a 
few days, but now find that I myself cannot endure 
for any length of time the stifling magnetism even 
of my own countrymen. I have seen some of our 
proud old Sikhs drunk and staggering over the 
marble pavement of their sacred temple. I have 
heard an English-speaking Vakil declaim against 
Yog Vidya and Theosophy as a delusion and a lie, 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 121 

declaring that English science had emancipated 
them from such degrading superstitions, and saying 
that it was an insult to India to maintain that the 
dirty Togees and Sunuyasis knew anything about 
the mysteries of Nature, or that any living man can, 
or ever could, perform any phenomena. I turn my 
face homeward to-morrow. 

" . . . . I have telegraphed you my thanks for 
your obliging compliance with my wishes in the 
matter you allude to in your letter of the 24th. • 
.... Received at Amritsur, on the 27th, at 2 p. m. 
I got your letter about thirty miles beyond Eawul 
Pinder, five minutes later, and had an acknowledg- 
ment wired to you from Jhelum at 4 p. m. on the 
\ same afternoon. Our modes of accelerated delivery 
and quick communications* are not, then, as you 
will see, to be despised by the Western world, or 

* Many old Indians, and some books about the Indian Mutiny, take 
note of the perfectly incomprehensible way news of events transpiring 
at a distance would sometimes be found to have penetrated the native 
bazaars before it had reached the Europeans at such places by the 
quickest means of communication at their disposal. The explanation 
I have been informed, is that the Brothers, who were anxious to 
save the British power at that time, regarding it as a better govern- 
ment for India than any system of native rule that could take its 
place, were quick to distribute information by their own methods 
when this could operate to quiet popular excitement and discourage 
new risings. The sentiment that animated them then, animates 
them still, and the influence of the Theosophical Society in India is 
one which the Government would do wisely to countenance and 
support. The suspicions directed against its founders in the first ' 
instance, misdirected as they were, were excusable enough, but now 
that the character of the whole movement is better understood, it 
would be well for the officers of the British Government in India 
wno have any opportunity of the kind, to do whatever they can 
towards showing their sympathy with the promoters of the Society, 
who must, necessarily, have an uphill task to perform without such 
manifestations of sympathy. 

6 



122 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



even the Ayran English-speaking and skeptical 
vakils. 

" I could not ask a more judicial frame of mind 
in an ally than that in which you are beginning 
to find yourself. My brother, you have already 
changed your attitude toward us in a distinct de- 
gree. What is to prevent a perfect mutual under- 
standing one day? .... It is not possible that 
there should be much more at best than a benevo- 
lent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. 
There is so very minute a point of contact between 
the two civilizations they respectively represent, that 
one might almost say they could not touch at all. 
ISTor would they, but for the few — shall I say eccen- 
trics? — who, like you, dream better and bolder 
dreams than the rest, and, provoking thought, bring 
the two together by their own admirable audacity." 

The letter before me at present is occupied so 
much with matters personal to myself, that I can 
only make quotations here and there ; but these 
are specially interesting, as investing with an air 
of reality subjects which are generally treated in 
vague and pompous language. Koot Hoomi was 
anxious to guard me from idealizing the Brothers 
too much on the strength of my admiration for their 
marvellous powers. 

" Are you certain," he writes, " that the pleasant 
impression you now may have from our correspon- 
dence would not instantly be destroyed upon seeing 
me. And which of our holy shaberons has had the 
benefit of even the little university education and 
inkling of European manners that has fallen to my 
share. An instance : I desired Madame Blavatsky to 



7 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 4 123 

select, among the two or three Aryian Funjabees. 
who study Yog Vidya and are natiii one/ 
whom, without disclosing myself . to him too mt 
I could designate as an agent between yourself and 
us, and w^hom I was anxious to despatch to you 
with a letter of introduction, and have him to speak 
to you of Yoga and its practical effects. This young 
gentleman, who is as pure as purity itself, whose aspi- 
rations and thoughts are of the most spiritual, en- 
nobling kind, and who, merely through self-exertion, 
is able to penetrate into the regions of the formless 
world— this young man is not fit for a drawing- 
room. Having explained to him that the greatest 
good might result for his country if he helped you 
to organize a branch of English mystics, by proving 
to them practically to what wonderful results led 
the study of Yog, Madame Blavatsky asked him, in 
guarded and very delicate terms, to change his 
dress and turban before starting for Allahabad ; 
for — though she did not give him this reason — they 
were very dirty and slovenly. You are to tell Mr. 
Sinnett, she said, that you bring him a letter from 
the Brother, with whom he corresponds ; but if he 
asks you anything either of him or the other 
Brothers, answer him simply and truthfully that 
you are not allowed to expatiate upon the subject. 
Speak of Yog, and prove to him what powers you 
have attained. This young man who had consented, 
wrote later on the following curious letter : — 
4 Madame,' he said, 6 you who preach the highest 
standard of morality, of truthfulness, &c, you would 
have me play the part of an impostor. You ask 
me to change my clothes at the risk of giving a 



124 



THE OCCfJLT -VORLD. 



false nality and mystifying the 

g me to ' Here is an 

difficulties under which we have 
owerless to send you a neophyte 
nave pledged yourself to us, we have to 
either Keep back or despatch to you one who, at 
e t, would shock, if not inspire, you at once with 
disgust." 

The present letter yields only little more that it 
seems desirable to quote. In a guarded way, Koot 
Hoomi said that as often as it was practicable to 

communicate with me, " whether by • letters 

(in or out of pillows) or personal visits in astral 
form, it will be done. But remember," he added, 
"that Simla is 7,000 feet higher than Allahabad, 
and the difficulties to be surmounted at the latter 
are tremendous." To the ordinary mind, feats of 
" magic " are hardly distinguishable by degrees of 
difficulty, and the little hint contained in the last 
sentence may thus help to show that, magical as 
the phenomena of the Brothers appear (as soon as 
the dull-witted hypothesis of fraud is abandoned), 
they are magic of a kind which is amenable to its own 
laws. Most of the bodies in Nature were elements, 
in the infancy of chemistry ; but in turn the num- 
ber is reduced by deeper and deeper researches into 
the law of combinations — and so with magic. To 
ride the clouds in a basket, or send messages under 
the sea, would have been magic in one age of the 
world, but becomes the commonplace of the next. 
The Simla phenomena are magic tor the majority of 
this generation, but psychological telegraphy itself 
may become, if not the property of mankind a few 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 

generations hence, a fact of science as undeniable aB 
the differential calculus, and known to be attainable 
by its own appropriate students. That it is easie 
to accomplish it and cognate achievements, in cei > 
tain strata of the atmosphere rather than in others, 
is already a practical suggestion which tends to drag* 
it down from the realms of magic ; or, as the sam 
idea might be differently expressed, to lift it towards 
the region of exafefc science. 

I air bled to insert the greater part of a 

lettei addressed by Koot Hoomi to the frien 
referred to in a former passage, as having opened 
up a correspondence with him in reference to tl 
idea which lie contemplated under certain condi- 
devoting himself entirely to the pursuit < 
r ism. This letter throws a great deal of ligl t 
apon some of the metaphysical conceptions of tl ■: 
occultists, and their metaphysics, be it rememberer 
are a great deal more than abstract speculation. 

" Dear Sir— Availing of the first moments < 
leisure to formally answer your letter of the 17tii 
ultimo, I will now report the result of my confe * 
ence with our chiefs upon the proposition therein 
contained, trying at the same time to answer an 
your questions. ' 

" I am first to thank you on behalf of the whole 
section of our fraternity that is especially interested 
in the welfare of India for an offer of help whose im 
portance and sincerity no one can 'doubt Tracing on I 
lineage through the vicissitudes of Indian civilizatio n 
from a remote past, we have a love for our mother 
land lia deep and passionate that it has survived 
'do' 



7 26 



I 

THE OCCULT WORLD. 



ven the broadening and cosmopolitanizing (pardon 

we if that is not an English word) effect of our 
studies in the laws of Nature. And so I, and 
aver j other Indian patriot, feel the strongest grati- 

ide for every kind word or deed that is given in 

er behalf. 

"Imagine, then, that since we are all convinced 
that the degradation of India is largely due to the 
suffocation of her ancient spirituality tid that 
a hatever helps < to restore that higher r \ of 

thought and morals, must be regenerating al 
{ >rce, every one of us would naturally 
urging, be disposed to push forward a 
proposed formation is under debate, espt 
1 ;ally is meant to become a society untaiii 
selfish motive, and whose object is the revivs 

icient science, and tendency, to rehabilitate o. 

mntry in the world's estimation. Take this for 
granted without further asseverations. But you 

low, as any man who has read history, that 
| itriots may burst their hearts in vain if circum- 

inces are against them. Sometimes it has hap- 
| sned that no human power, not even the fury and 
force of the loftiest patriotism, has been able to 

end an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, 

id nations have gone out like torches dropped 

to the water in the engulfing blackness of ruin. 

Ims, we who have the sense of our country's fall,* 
though not the power to lift her up at once, cannot 

> as we would either as to general affairs or this 

irticular one. And with the readiness, but not 
the right to meet your advances more than half 
way, we are forced to say that the idea entertained 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



12) 



by Mr. Sinnett and yourself is impracticable in 
part. It is, in a word, impossible for myself 01 
any Brother, or even an advanced neophyte, to be 
specially assigned and set apart as the guiding 
spirit or chief of the Anglo-Indian branch. We 
know it would be a good thing to have you and 3 
few of your colleagues regularly instructed and 
shown the phenomena and their rationale. For 
though none but you few would be convinced, still it 
would be a decided gain to have even a few English- 
men, of first-class ability, enlisted as students of 
Asiatic Psychology. We are aware of all this, and 
much more ; hence we do not refuse to correspond 
with, and otherwise help you in various ways. But 
what we do refuse is, to take any other responsibility 
upon ourselves than this periodical correspondence 
and assistance with our advice, and, as occasion 
favours, such tangible, possibly visible, proofs, as would 
satisfy you of our presence and interest. To " guide " 
you we will not consent. However much we may 
be able to do, yet we can promise only to give you 
the full measure of your deserts. Deserve much, 
and we will prove honest debtors ; little, and you 
need only expect a compensating return. This is 
not a mere text taken from & schoolboy's copybook, 
though it sounds so, but only the clumsy statement of 
the law of our order, and we cannot transcend it. 
Utterly unacquainted with Western, especially Eng- 
lish, modes of thought and action, were we to 
meddle in an organization of such a kind, you 
would find all your fixed habits and traditions in- 
cessantly clashing, if not with the new aspirations 
themselves, at least with their modes of realization 



23 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



3 suggested by us. You could not get unanimous 
C >nsent to go even the length you might yourself. 
I have asked Mr. Sinnett to draft a plan embodying 

)ur joint ideas for submission to our chiefs, this 
seeming the shortest way to a mutual agreement. 
Under our ' guidance ' your branch could not live, 
you not being men to be guided at all in that sense. 
Hence the society would be a premature birth and 
a failure, looking as incongruous as a Paris Dau- 
mont drawn by a team of Indian yaks or camels. 
Tou ask us to teach you true science — the occult 
aspect of the known side of Nature ; and this you 
think can be as easily done as asked. You do not 
seem to realize the tremendous difficulties in the 
way of imparting even the rudiments of our science 
to those who have been trained in the familiar me- 
thods of yours. You do not see that the more you 
have of the one the less capable you are of instinc- 
tively comprehending the other, for a man can only 
think in his worn grooves, and unless he has the 
courage to fill up these, and make new. ones for 
himself, he must perforce travel on the old lines. 
Allow me a few instances. In conformity with 
exact science you would define but one cosmic 
energy, and see no difference between the energy 
expended by the traveller who pushes aside the 
bush that obstructs his path, and the scientific ex- 
perimenter who expends an equal amount of energy 
in setting a pendulum in motion. We do; for we 
know there is a world of difference between the two. 
The one uselessly dissipates and scatters force, the 
other concentrates and stores it. And here please 
id that 1 do not refer to the relative utility 



FIRST OCCULT 



"9 



of the two, as one might 
fact that in the one case 
flung out without any transmutauv^ c 
energy into the higher potential form of spiritual 
dynamics, and in the other there is just thi 
Please do not consider me vaguely metaphysics 
The idea I wish to convey fe that the result of t] 
highest intellection in the scientifically occupi* 
brain is the evolution of a sublimated form of spii 
tual energy, which, in the cosmic action, is produ 
tive of illimitable results ; while the automatically 
acting brain holds, or stores up in itself, only a cer- 
tain quantum of brute force that is unfruitful of 
benefit for the individual or humanity. The human 
brain is an exhaustless generator of the most refined 
quality of cosmic force out of the low, brute energy 
of Nature ; and the complete adept has made him- 
self a centre from which irradiate potentialities 
that beget correlations upon correlations through 
^Eons of time to come. This is the key to the 
mystery of his being able to project into and ma- 
terialize in the visible world the forms that his 
imagination has constructed out of inert cosmic 
matter in the invisible world. The adept does not 
create anything new, but ^only utilizes and manipu- 
lates materials which Natu>e has in store around 
him, and material which, throughout eternities, 
has passed through all ' the forms. He has but 
to' choose the one hpj wants, and recall it into 
objective existence.* Would not this sound to 
one of your 'learned' biologists like a madman* 
dream ? / 

" You- say therfe are few branches of scienc 



T WORLD. 



which you do not possess >aore ,or less acquaintance, 
and th*t yen* believe > ou are doing a certain 

squired the position to do . 
3 bj long years of study. Doubtless you do ; 
it will you permit me to sketch for you still more 
Barly the difference between the modes of physical 
illed exact often out of mere compliment) and 
etaphysical sciences. The latter, as you know, 
dng incapable of verification before mixed 
diences, is classed by Mr. Tyndall with the 
itions of poetry. The realistic science of fact on 
e other hand is utterly prosaic. Now, for us, 
)or unknown philanthropists, no fact of either of 
these sciences is interesting except in the degree of 
its potentiality of moral results, and in the ratio of 
its usefulness to mankind. And what, in its proud 
isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to every- 
one and everything, or more bound to nothing 
but the selfish requisites for its advancement, then 
this materialistic science of fact ? May I ask then, 1 
.... what have the laws of Faraday, Tyndall, or 
others to do with philanthropy in their abstract rela- 
tions with humanity, viewed as an intelligent whole ? 
"What care they for Ma<n as an isolated atom of 
this great and harmonioyiis whole, even though they 
may be sometimes of practical use to him? Cosmic 
energy is something eternal and incessant ; matter 
is indestructible : and there \ stand the scientific facts. 
Doubt them, and you are van ignoramus ; deny 
them, a dangerous lunatic, a Mgot ; pretend to im- 
prove upon the theories — an im. pertinent charlatan. 
Vnd yet even these scientific fac ts never suggested 
' proof to the world of experimenters that 

\ ■ 



FIRST OCCULT EXPEi. 



Nature consciously prefers that matW 
indestructible under organic rather than * 
forms, and that she works slowly but incest 
towards the realization of this object — tho e\ . 
lution of conscious life out of inert material. 
Hence, their ignorance about the scattering and 
concretion of cosmic energy in its metaphysical 
aspects, their division about Darwin's theories, their 
uncertainty about the degree of conscious life in 
separate elements, and, as a necessity, the scornful 
rejection; of every phenomenon outside their own 
stated conditions, and the v^y idea of worlds of 
semi-intelligent if not intellectual forces at work in 
hidden corners of Nature. To give you another 
practical illustratiqn — we see a vast difference 
between the two qualities of two equal amounts of 
energy expended by two men, of whom one, let us 
suppose, is on his way to his daily quiet work, and 
another on his way to denounce a fellow-creature 
at the police-station, while the men of science se 
none ; and we — not they — see a specific diff ere r 
between the energy in the motion of the wind 
that of a revolving wheel. And why? Be 
every thought of man upon being evolv 
! into the inner world, and becomes an act 
by associating itself, coalescing we mi 
with an elemental — that is to say, v 
semi-intelligent forces of the kinr Lr- 
vives as an active intelligence— the 
mind's begetting — for a longc period 
proportionate with the ori^ of the 

cerebral action which gene^ < -is, a good 

thought is perpetuated , beneficent 



^ULT WORLD. 



4 as a maleficent demon. And so 
aally peopling his current in space 
a. of his own, crowded with the offsprings 
nicies, desires, impulses, and passions ; a 
X which re-acts upon any sensitive or nervous 
^anization which comes in contact with it, in 
proportion to its dynamic intensity. The Buddhist 
calls this his i Skandha ? ; the Hindu gives it the 
name of 'Karma.' The adept evolves these 
shapes consciously ; other men throw them off 
unconsciously. The adept, to be successful and 
preserve his power, must dwell in solitude, and 
more or less within his own soul. Still less does 
exact science perceive that while the building ant, 
the busy bee, the nidifacient bird, accumulates each 
in its own humble way as much cosmic energy 
in its potential form as a Haydn, a Plato, or a 
ploughman turning his furrow, in theirs; the 
hunter who kills game for his pleasure or profit, or 
the positivist who applies his intellect to proving 
that + X + = — , are wasting and scattering 
Tgy no . less than the tiger which springs upon 
*ey. They all rob Nature instead of enriching 
1 will all, in the degree of their intelligence, 
elves accountable. 

Derimental science has nothing to do 



virtue, philanthropy — therefore, can 

mi ipon our help until it blends itself 

with Being but a cold classification 

of factt and existing before and after 

him, her dduu Iness ceases for us at the 

outer bourn* Pacts ; and whatever the 

inferences ant. humanity from the 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 133 



materials acquired by her method, she little cares. 
Therefore, as our sphere lies entirely outside hers — 
as far as the path of Uranus is outside the Earth's 
— we distinctly refuse to be broken on any wheel of 
her construction. Heat is but a mode of motion 
to her, and motion developes heat, but why the 
mechanical motion of the revolving wheel should 
be metaphysically of a higher value than the heat 
into which it is gradually transformed she has yet 
to discover. The philosophical and transcendental 
(hence absurd) notion of the mediaeval Theosophists 
that the final progress of human labour, aided by the 
incessant discoveries of man, must one day culmi- 
nate in a process which, in imitation of the Sun's 
energy — in its capacity as a direct motor — shall 
result in the evolution of nutritious food out of 
inorganic matter, is unthinkable for men of science. 
Were the sun, the great nourishing father of our 
planetary system, to hatch granite chickens out of 
a boulder ' under test conditions ' to-morrow, they 
(the men of science) would accept it as a scientific 
fact without wasting a regret that the fowls were 
not alive so as to feed the hungry and the starving. 
j But let a shdberon cross the Himalayas in a time 
of famine and multiply sacks of rice for the perish- 
ing multitudes — as he could— and your magistrates 
and collectors would probably lodge him in jail to 
make him confess what granary he had robbed. 
This is exact science and your realistic world. And 
though, as you say, you are impressed by the vast 
extent of the world's ignorance on every subject, 
w r hich you pertinently designate as a c few palpable 
facts collected and roughly generalized, and a 



134 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



technical jargon invented to hide man's ignorance 
of all that lies behind these facts,' and though you 
speak of your faith in the infinite possibilities of 
Nature, yet you are content to spend your life in a 
work which aids only that same exact science. . . . 

" Of your several questions we will first discuss, if 
you please, the one relating to the presumed failure 
of the ' Fraternity ' to 6 leave any mark upon the 
history of the world.' They ought, you think, to 
have been able, with their extraordinary advantages, 
to have ' gathered into their schools a considerable 
portion of the more enlightened minds of every 
race.' How do you know they have made no such 
mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts, suc- 
cesses, and failures? Have you any dock upon 
which to arraign them ? How could your world 
collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedu- 
lously kept closed every possible door of approach 
by which the inquisitive could spy upon them? 
The prime condition of their success was that they 
should never be supervised or obstructed. What they 
have done they know ; all that those outside their 
circle could perceive was results, the causes of which 
were masked from view. To account for these 
results, men have, in different ages, invented theories 
of the interposition of gods, special providences, 
fates, the benign or hostile influence of the stars. 
There never was a time within or before the so- 
called historical period when our predecessors were 
not moulding events and 'making history, 1 the 
facts of which were subsequently and invariably 
distorted by historians to suit contemporary pre- 
judices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 135 

figures in the successive dramas were not often 
but their puppets? We never pretended to be 
able to draw nations in the mass to this or that 
crisis in spite of the general drift of the world's 
cosmic relations. The cycles must run their rounds. 
Periods of mental and moral light and darkness 
succeed each other as day does night. The major 
and minor yugas must be accomplished according 
to the established order of things. And we, borne 
along on the mighty tide, can only modify and 
direct some of its minor currents. If we had the 
powers of the imaginary Personal God, and the uni- 
versal and immutable laws were but toys to play with, 
then, indeed, might we have created conditions that 
would have turned this earth into an arcadia for 
lofty souls. But having to deal with an immutable 
law, being ourselves its creatures, we have had to 
do what we could, and rest thankful. There have 
been times when £ a considerable portion of en- 
lightened minds 5 were taught in our schools. 
Such times there were in India, Persia, Egypt, 
Greece, and Pome. But, as I remarked in a letter 
to Mr. Sinnett, the adept is the efflorescence of his 
age, and comparatively few ever appear in a single 
century. Earth is the battle-ground of moral no 
less than of physical forces, and the boisterousness 
of animal passion, under the stimulus of the rude 
energies of the lower group of etheric agents, always 
tends to quench spirituality. What else could one 
expect of men so nearly related to the lower king- 
dom from which they evolved? True also, our 
numbers are just now diminishing, but this is 
because, as I have said, we are of the human race, 



136 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



subject to its cyclic impulse, and powerless to turn 
that back upon itself. Can you turn the Gunga 
or the 1 Bramiaputra back to its sources ; can you 
even dam it so that its piled-up waters will not 
overflow the banks ? No ; but you may draw the 
stream partly into canals, and utilize its hydraulic 
power for the good of mankind. So we, 
who cannot stop the world from going in its 
destined direction, are yet able to divert some part 
of its energy into useful channels. Think of us as 
demi-gods, and my explanation will not satisfy you ; 
view us as simple men — perhaps a little wiser as the . 
result of special study— and it ought to answer your 
objection. 

"'What good,' you say, 6 is to be attained for 
my fellows and myself (the two are inseparable) by 
these occult sciences % ' When the natives see that 
an interest is taken by the English, and even by 
some high officials in India, in their ancestral science 
and philosophies, they will themselves take openly 
to their study. And when they come to realize 
that the old ' divine 5 phenomena were not miracles, 
but scientific effects, superstition will abate. Thus, 
the greatest evil that now oppresses and retards the 
revival of Indian civilization will in time disappear. 
The present tendency of education is to make them 
materialistic and root out spirituality. With a 
proper understanding of what their ancestors meant 
by their writings and teachings, education would 
become a blessing, whereas now it is often a curse. 
At present the non-educated, as much as the learned 
natives, regard the English as too prejudiced, because 
of their Christian religion and modern science, to 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



137 



care to understand them or their traditions. They 
mutually hate and mistrust each other. This 
changed attitude towards the older philosophy, would 
influence the native princes and wealthy men to 
endow normal schools for the education of pundits ; 
and old MSS., hitherto buried out of the reach of 
the Europeans, would again come to light, and with 
theip the key to much of that which was hidden for 
ages, from the popular understanding, for which your 
skeptical Sanscritists do not care, which your re- 
ligious missionaries do not dare, to understand. 
Science would gain much, humanity everything. 
Under the stimulus of the Anglo-Indian Theoso- 
phical Society, we might in time see another golden 
age of Sanscrit literature. .... 

" If we look at Ceylon we shall see the : %iost 
scholarly priests combining, under the lefd of the 
Theosophical Society, in a new exegesis of Buddhistic 
philosophy ; and at Galle, on the 15th of September, 
a secular Theosophical School for the teaching of 
Singhalese youth, opened with an attendance of 
over three hundred scholars ; an example about to 
be imitated at three other points in that island. 
If the Theosophical Society, 'as at present con- 
stituted/ has indeed no ' real vitality, 5 and yet in 
its modest way has done so much practical good, 
how much greater results might not be anticipated 
from a body organized upon the better plan you 
could suggest ? 

" The same causes that are materializing the Hindu 
mind are equally affecting all Western thought. 
Education enthrones skepticism, but imprisons 
spirituality. You can do immense good by helping 



138 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



to give the Western nations a secure basis upon 
which to reconstruct their crumbling faith. And 
what they need is the evidence that Asiatic psycho- 
logy alone supplies. Give this, and you will confer 
happiness of mind on thousands. The era of blind 
faith is gone ; that of inquiry is here. Inquiry 
that only unmasks error, without discovering any- 
thing upon which the soul can build, will but make 
iconoclasts. Iconoclasm, from its very destructive- 
ness, can give nothing ; it can only raze.' But man 
cannot rest satisfied with bare negation. Agnosti- 
cism is but a temporary halt. This is the moment 
to guide the recurrent impulse which must soon 
come, and which will push the age towards extreme 
atheism, or drag it back to extreme sacerdotalism, 
if it is not led to the primitive soul-satisfying philo- 
sophy of the Aryans. He w T ho observes what is 
going on to-day, on the one hand among the 
Catholics, who are breeding miracles as fast as the 
white ants do their young, on the other among the 
free-thinkers, who are converting, by masses, into 
Agnostics — will see the drift of tilings. The age is 
revelling at a debauch of phenomena. The same 
marvels that the spiritualists quote in opposition to 
the dogmas of eternal perdition and atonement, the 
Catholics swarm to witness as proof of their faith in 
miracles. The skeptics make game of both. All 
are blind and there is no one to lead them. You 
and your colleagues may help to furnish the materials 
for a needed universal religious philosophy ; one 
impregnable to scientific assault, because itself the 
finality of absolute science, and a religion that is. 
indeed worthy of the name since it includes the 



FIRST OCCULT EXP ERIE I 

relations rof man physical to man psycx 
the two to all that is above and below them* Is 
not this worth a slight sacrifice? And if, 
reflection, you should decide to enter this nt, ' 
career, let it be known that your society is no 
miracle-mongering or banqueting club, nor specially 
given to the study of phenomenalism. Its chief 
aim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepti- 
cism, and from long-sealed ancient fountains to 
draw the proof that man may shape his own future 
destiny, and know for a certainty that he can live 
hereafter, if he only wills, and that all 'phenomena' 
are but manifestations of natural law, to try to 
comprehend which is the duty of every intelligent 
being." 

I have hitherto said nothing of the circumstances 
under which these various letters reached 
nor, in comparison with the intrinsic inter 
ideas they embody, can the phenomenal 
under which some of them were deliver 
garded as otherwise than of secondary 
readers who appreciate their philosophy. But every 
bit of evidence which helps to exhibit the nature of 
the powers w r hich the adepts exercise, is worth atten- 
tion, while the rationale of such powers is still hid- 
den from the world. The fact of their existence 
can only be established by the accumulation of such 
evidence, as long as we are unable to prove their 
possibility by d priori analysis of the latent capaci- 
ties in man. 

My friend to whom the last letter was addressed 
wrote a long reply, and subsequently an additional 
letter for Koot Hoomi, which he forwarded to me, 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



ae to read and then seal it up and g 
it to Madame Blavatzky for transmission, 
ag expected at about that time at my house at 
.Allahabad on her way down country from Amritsur 
and Lahore, where, as I have already indicated, she 
had stayed for some little time after our household 
broke up for the season at Simla. I did as desired, 
and gave the letter to Madame Blavatsky, after 
gumming and sealing the stout envelope in which 
it was forwarded. That evening, a few hours after- 
wards, on returning home to dinner, I found that 
the letter had gone, and had come back again. 
Madame Blavatsky told me that she had been talk- 
ing to a visitor in her own room, and had been 
fingering a blue pencil on her writing-table without 
noticing what she was doing, when she suddenly 
;d that the paper on which she was scribbling 
etter that the addressee had duly 'taken 
i of, by his own methods, an hour or two 
he found that she had, while taking about 
something else, unconsciously written on the enve- 
lope the words which it then bore, " Read and re- 
turned with thanks, and a few commentaries. Please 
open. " I examined the envelope carefully, and it 
was absolutely intact, its very complete fastenings 
having remained just as I arranged them. Slitting 
it open, I found the letter which it had contained 
when I sent it, and another from Koot Hoomi to 
me, criticizing the former with the help of a succes- 
sion of pencil figures that referred to particular 
passages in the original letter — another illustration 
of the passage of matter through matter, which, for 
thousands of people who have had personal experi- 



FIRST OCCUIT EXPERIENCES. 141 



ence of it in Spiritualism, is as certain a fact of 
nature as the rising of the sun, and which I have 
now not only encountered at spiritual seances^ but, 
as this record will have shown, on many occasions 
when there is no motive for suspecting any other 
agency than that of living beings with faculties of 
which we may all possess the undeveloped germs, 
though it is only in their case that knowledge has 
brought these to phenomenal fruition. 

Sceptical critics, putting aside the collateral 
bearing of all the previous phenomena I have de- 
scribed, and dealing with this letter incident by 
itself alone, will perhaps say — Of course Madame 
Blavatsky had ample time to open the envelope by 
such means as the mediums who profess to get 
answers to sealed letters from the spirit world 
are in the habit of employing. But, firstly, the 
Jhelum telegram proof, and the inherent evidence of 
the whole correspondence show that, the letters 
which come to me in that which I recognize as 
Koot Hoomi's handwriting, are not the work of 
Madame Blavatsky, at all events ; secondly, let the 
incident I have just described be compared with 
another illustration of an exactly similar incident 
which occurred shortly afterwards under different 
circumstances Koot Hoomi had sent me a letter 
addressed to my friend to read and forward on. 
On the subject of this letter before sending it I 
had occasion to make a communication to Koot 
Hoomi. I wrote a note to him, fastened it up in 
an ordinary adhesive envelope, and gave it to 
Madame Blavatsky. She put it in her pocket, 
went into her own room, which opened out of the 



142 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



drawingroom, and came out again almost instantly • 
Certainly she had not been away thirty seconds. 
She said " he " had taken it at once, Then she 
followed me back through the house to my office 
room, spoke for a few minutes in the adjoining 
room to my wife, and, returning into my office, lay 
down on a couch. I went on with my work, and 
perhaps ten minutes elapsed, perhaps less. Sud- 
denly she got up. " There's your letter," she said, 
pointing to the pillow from which she had lifted 
her head; and there lay the letter I had just 
written, intact as regards its appearance, but 
with Koot Hoomi's name on the outside scored 
out and mine written over it. After a thorough 
examination I slit the envelope, and found inside, 
on the fly-leaf of my note, the answer I required in 
Koot Hoomi's handwriting. Now, except for the 
thirty seconds during which she retired to her own 
room, Madame Blavatsky had not been out of my 
sight, except for a minute or two in my wife's room, 
during the short interval which elapsed between the 
delivery of the letter by me to her and its return to 
me as described. And during this interval no one 
else had come into my room. The incident was as 
absolute and complete a mechanical proof of abnor- 
mal power exercised to produce the result as any 
conceivable test could have yielded. Except by 
declaring that I cannot be describing it correctly, 
the most resolute partisan of the commonplace will 
be unable seriously to dispute the force of this in- 
cident. He may take 2'efuge in idiotic ridicule, or 
he may declare that I am misrepresenting the facts. 
As regards the latter hypothesis I can only pledge 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



my word, as I do hereby, to the exact accuracy of 
the statement. 

In one or two cases I have got back answers from 
Koot Hoomi to my letters in my own envelopes, 
these remaining intact as addressed to him, but with 
the address changed, and my letter gone from the 
inside, his reply having taken its place. In two or 
three cases I have found short messages from Koot 
Hoomi written across the blank parts of letters from 
other persons, coming to me through the post, the 
writers in these case's being assuredly unaware of 
the additions so made to their epistles. 

Of course I have asked Koot Hoomi for an ex- 
planation of these little phenomena, but it is easier 
for me to ask than for him to answer, partly because 
the forces which the adepts bring to bear upon 
matter to achieve abnormal results, are of a kind 
which ordinary science knows so little about that 
we of the outer world are not prepared for such ex- 
planations ; and partly because the manipulation of 
the forces employed has to do, sometimes, with secrets 
of initiation which an occultist must not reveal. 
However, in reference to the subject before us, I 
received on one occasion this hint as an explana- 
tion. 

" . . . . Besides, bear in mind that these my 
letters are not written, but impressed, or precipitated, 
and then all mistakes corrected." 

Of course I wanted to know more about such 
precipitation; was it a process which followed 
thought more rapidly than any with which we were 
familiar? And as regards letters received, did the 
meaning of these penetrate the understanding of an 



144 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



occult recipient at once, or were they read in the 
ordinary way ? 

" Of course I have to read every word you write/' 
Koot Hoomi replied, " otherwise I would make a fine 
mess of it. And whether it be through my physical 
or spiritual eyes, the time required for it is practically 
the same. As much may be said of my replies ; for 
whether I precipitate or dictate them or write my 
answers myself, the difference in time saved is very 
minute. I have to think it over, to photograph 
every word and sentence carefully in my brain, be- 
fore it can be repeated by precipitation. As the 
fixing on chemically prepared surfaces of the images 
formed by the camera requires a previous arrange- 
ment within the focus of the object to be repre- 
sented, for otherwise — as often found in bad photo- 
graphs — the legs of the sitter might appear out of 
all proportion with the head, and so on — so we have 
to first arrange our sentences and impress every 
letter to appear on paper in our minds before it be- 
comes fit to be read. For the present it is all 1 can 
tell you. When science will have learned more about 
the mystery of the lithophyl (or litho-biblion), and 
how the impress of leaves comes originaily to take 
place on stones, then I will be able to make you better 
understand the process. But you must know and 
remember one thing — we but follow and servilely 
copy Nature in her works." 

In another letter Koot Hoomi expatiates more 
fully on the difficulty of making occult explanations 
intelligible to minds trained only in modern science. 

"Only the progress one makes in the study of 
arcane knowledge from its rudimental elements 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCE'S. I45 

brings him gradually to understand our meaning. 
Only thus, and not otherwise, does it, strengthe:qi Q g : - 
and refining those mysterious links of sympati v 
between intelligent men — the temporarily isolate \! 
fragments of the universal soul, and the cosmic sour 
itself — bring them into full rapport. Once this 
established, then only will those awakened sympathies 
serve, indeed, to connect Man with — what, for the 
want of a European scientific word more competent 
to express the idea, I am again compelled to 
describe as that energetic chain which binds to- 
gether the material and immaterial kosmos — Past, 
Present, and Future, and quicken his perceptions 
so as to clearly grasp not merely all things of 
matter, but of spirit also. I feel even irritated at 
having to use these three clumsy words — Past, 
Present, and Future. Miserable concepts of the 
objective phases of the subjective whole, they are 
about as ill adapted for the purpose, as an axe for 
fine carving. Oh, my poor disappointed friend, that 
you were already so far advanced on the Path that 
this simple transmission of ideas should not be 
encumbered by th£ conditions of matter, the union 
of your mind with ours prevented by its induced 
incapabilities. Such is unfortunately the inherited 
and self-acquired grossness of the Western mind, 
and so ^greatly have the very phrases expressive of 
modern thoughts been developed in the line of 
practical materialism, that it is now next to im- 
possible, either for them to comprehend or for us to 
express in their own languages anything of that 
delicate, seemingly ideal, machinery of the occult 
kosmos. To some little extent that faculty can fee 



I4 6 / THE OCCULT WORLD. 

acquired by the Europeans through study and me- 
ditat^- on ? but — that's all. And here is the bar which 
hitherto prevented a conviction of the theoso- 
^o'cal truths from gaining currency among Western 
nations — caused theosophical study to be cast aside 
as useless and fantastic by Western philosophers. 
How shall I teach you to read and write, or even 
comprehend a language of which no alphabet 
palpable or words audible to you have yet been 
invented. How could the phenomena of our 
modern electrical science be explained to— say a 
Greek philosopher of the days of Ptolemy, were he 
suddenly recalled to life — with such an unbridged 
hiatus in discovery as would exist bet ween, his and 
our age ? Would not the very technical terms be 
to him an unintelligible jargon, an abracadabra of 
meaningless sounds, and the very instruments and 
apparatuses used but miraculous monstrosities? 
And suppose for one instant I were to describe to 
you the lines of those colour rays that lie beyond 
the so-called visible spectrum — rays invisible to all 
but a very few even among us ; to explain how we 
can find in space any one of the so-called subjective 
or accidental colours — the complement (to speak 
mathematically) moreover of any other given colour 
of a dichromatic body (which alone sounds like an 
absurdity) could you comprehend, do you think, 
their optical effect, or even my meaning? And 
since you see them not — such rays — nor can know 
them, nor have you any names for them as yet in 
science, if I were to tell you .... ' without 
moving from your writing-desk, try search for, and 
produce before your eyes the whole solar spectrum 



FIRST OCCUIT EXPERIENCES. 147 

decomposed into fourteen prismatic colours (seven 
being complementary) as it is but with the help of 
that occult light that you can see me from a dis- 
tance as I see you' — what think you would be 
your answer ? What would you have to reply ? 
Would you not be likely enough to retort by telling 
me that as there never were but seven (now three) 
primary colours which, moreover, have never yet 
by any known physical process been seen decom- 
posed further than the seven prismatic hues, my 
invitation was as unscientific as it was absurd ? 
Adding that my offer to search for an imaginary 
solar complement, being no compliment to your 
knowledge of physical science — 1 had better, 
perhaps, go and search for my mythical dichromatic 
and solar 6 pairs ' in Thibet, for modern science 
has hitherto been unable to bring under any theory 
even so simple a phenomenon as the colours of all 
such dichromatic bodies. And yet truth knows 
these colours are objective enough. 

"So you see the insurmountable difficulties in 
the way of obtaining not only absolute, but even 
primary knowledge in Occult Science, for one 
situated as you are. How could you make yourself 
understood, command in fact, those semi-intelligent 
Forces., whose means of communicating with us are 
not through spoken words, but through sounds and 
colours in correlations between the vibrations of 
the two ? For sound, light, and colour are the 
main factors in forming those grades of intelligences, 
these beings of whose very existence you have no 
conception, nor are you allowed to believe in them — 
Atheists and Christians, Materialists and Spiritualists, 



148 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



all bringing forward their respective arguments 
against such a belief — Science objecting stronger 
than either of these to such a degrading supersti- 
tion. 

" Thus, because they cannot with one leap over the 
boundary walls attain to the pinnacles of Eternity — 
because we cannot take a savage from the centre of 
Africa and make him comprehend at once the 6 Prin- 
eipia' of Newton, or the ' Sociology 5 of Herbert 
Spencer, or make an unlettered child write a new 
Iliad in old Achaian Greek, or an ordinary painter 
depict scenes in Saturn, or sketch the inhabitants of 
Arcturus — lecause of all this our very existence 
is denied. Yes, for this reason are believers in 
us pronounced impostors and fools, and the very 
science which leads to the highest goal of the 
highest knowledge, to the real tasting of the Tree 
of Life and Wisdom — is scouted as a wild flight of 
imagination." 

The following passage occurs in another letter, 
but it adheres naturally enough to the extract just 
concluded. 

" The truths and mysteries of occultism constitute, 
indeed, a body of the highest spiritual importance, 
at once profound and practical for the world at 
large. Yet it is not as an addition to the tangled 
mass of theory or speculation that they are being 
given to you, but for their practical bearing on the 
interests of mankind. The terms Unscientific, 
Impossible, Hallucination, Imposture, have hitherto 
been used in a very loose, careless way, as implying 
in the occult phenomena something either myste- 
rious and abnormal, or a premeditated imposture. 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 149 

And this is why our chiefs have determined to 
shed upon a few recipient minds more light 
upon the subject, and to prove to them that such 
manifestations are as reducible to law as the 
simplest phenomena in the physical universe. The 
wiseacres say, ' the age of miracles is past;' but 
we answer, ' it never existed.' While not un- 
paralleled or without their counterpart in univer- 
sal history, these phenomena must and will come 
with an overpowering influence upon the world of 
skeptics and bigots. They have to prove both 
destructive and constructive — destructive in the 
pernicious errors of the past, in the old creeds and 
superstitions which suffocate in their poisonous 
embrace, like the Mexican w^eed, nigh all mankind ; 
but constructive of new institutions of a genuine, 
practical Brotherhood of Humanity, where all will 
become co-workers of Nature, will work for the 
good of mankind, w%ih and through the higher 
planetary spirits, the only spirits we believe in. 
Phenomenal elements previously un thought of, 
undreamed of, will soon begin manifesting them- 
selves day by day with constantly augmented force, 
and disclose at last the secrets of their mysterious 
workings. Plato was right. 1 Ideas rule the world ; 
and as men's minds will receive new ideas, laying 
aside the old and effete, the world will advance, 
mighty revolutions will spring from them, creeds 
and even powers will crumble before their onward 
march, crushed by their irresistible force. It will 
be just as impossible to resist their influence when 
the time comes as to stay the progress of the tide. 
But all this will come gradually on, and before jt 

1 See Appendix D. 



150 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



comes we have a duty set before us : that of sweeping 
away as much as possible the dross left to us by our 
pious forefathers. New ideas have to be planted on 
clean places, for these ideas touch upon the most 
momentous subjects. It is not physical phenomena, 
but these universal ideas, that we study ; as to com- 
prehend the former, we have first to understand the 
latter. They touch man's true position in the uni- 
verse in relation to his previous and future births, 
his origin and ultimate destiny ; the relation of the 
mortal to the immortal, of .the temporary to the 
eternal, of the finite to the infinite ; ideas larger, 
grander, more comprehensive, recognizing the eternal 
reign of immutable law, unchanging and unchange- 
able, in regard to which there is only an Eternal 
Now : while to uninitiated mortals, time is past or 
future, as related to their finite . existence on this 
material speck of dirt. This is what we study and 

what many have solved Meanwhile, being 

human, I have to rest. I took no sleep for over 
sixty hours." 

Here are a few lines from KToot Hoomi's hand, 
in a letter not addressed to me. It falls conveniently 
into the present series of extracts. 

"Be it as it may, we are content to live as we do, 
unknown and undisturbed by a civilization which 
rests so exclusively upon intellect. Nor do we feel 
in any way concerned about the revival of our 
ancient art and high civilization, for these are as 
sure to come back in their time, and in a higher 
form, as the Plesiosaurus and the Megatherium in 
theirs. We have the weakness to believe in ever- 
recurrent cycles, and hope to quicken the resurrec- 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



tion of what is past and gone. We could not 
impede it, even if we would. The new civilization 
will be but the child of the old one, and we have 
but to leave the eternal law to take its own course, 
to have our dead ones come out of their graves; 
yet we are certainly anxious to hasten the welcome 
event. Fear not, although we do ' cling super- 
stitiously to the relics of the past,' our knowledge 
will not pass away from the sight of man. It is 
6 the gift of the gods,' and ; the most precious relic 
of all. The keepers of the sacred light did not 
safely cross so many ages but to find themselves 
wrecked on the rocks of modern skepticism. Our 
pilots are too experienced sailors to allow us to fear 
any such disaster. We will always find volunteers 
to replace the tired sentries, and the world, bad as 
it is in its present state of transitory period, can 
yet furnish us with a few men now and then." 

Turning back to my own correspondence, and to 
the latest letter I received from Koot Hoomi 
before leaving India on the trip home during 
which I am writing these pages, I read : — 

" I hope that at least you will understand that 
we (or most of us) are far from being the heartless 
morally dried-up mummies some would fancy us 
to be. Mejnour is very well where he is — as an 
ideal character of a thrilling, in many respects 
truthful story. Yet, believe me, few of us would 
care to play the part in life of a desiccated pansy 
between the leaves of a volume of solemn poetry. 

We may not be quite ' the boys ' to quote — 's 

irreverent expression when speaking of us, yet none 
of our degree are like the stern hero of Bulwer's 



152 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



romance. While the facilities of observation se- 
cured tos some of us by our condition, certainly give 
a greater breadth of view, a more pronounced and 
impartial, a more widely spread humaneness — for 
answering Addison, we might justly maintain that 
it is ' the business of " magic " to humanize our 
natures with compassion ' — for the- whole noankind 
as all living beings, instead of concentrating and 
limiting our affections to one predilected race — yet 
few of us (except such as have attained the final 
negation of Moksha) can so far enfranchise ourselves 
from the influence of our earthly connection as to be 
unsusceptible in various degrees to the higher 
pleasures, emotions, and interests of the common 
ran of humanity. Of course the greater the pro- 
gress towards deliverance, the less this will be the 
case, until, to crown all, human and purely individual 
personal feelings, blood-ties and friendship, patriotism 
and race predilection, will all give way to become 
blended into one universal feeling, the only true 
and holy, the only unselfish and eternal one— Love, 
an Immense Love for humanity as a whole. For it 
is humanity which is the great orphan, the only 
disinherited one upon this earth, my friend. And 
it is the duty bf every man who is capable of an 
unselfish impulse to do something, however little, 
for its welfare. It reminds me of the old fable of 
the war between the body and its members ; here, 
too, each limb of this huge 6 orphan,' ^ fatherless and 
motherless, selfishly cares but for itself. The body, 
uncar ed for, suffers eternally whether the limbs are 
at war or at rest. Its suffering and agony never 
cease ; and who can blame it — as your materialistic 



FIRST OCCULT EXPERIENCES. 



philosophers do — if, in this everlasting isolation and 
neglect, it has evolved gods unto whom 'it ever 
cries for help, but is not heard.' Thus— 1 

* Since there is hope for man only in man, > 
I would not let one cry whom I could save.. 

Yet I confess that I individually am not yet exempt 

from some of the terrestrial attachments.^ I am 

still attracted toward some men more than towards 

others, and philanthropy as preached by our great 

Patron — 

1 the Saviour of the world, . 

The teacher of Nirvana and the Law ' 

has never killed in me either individual preferences 
of friendship, love for my next of kin, or the ardent 
feeling of patriotism for the country in which I was 
last materially individualized." 

I had asked Koot Hoomi how far I was at 
liberty to use his letters in the preparation of this 
volume, and, a few lines after the passage just 
quoted, he says : — 

"I lay no restrictions' upon your making use of 
anything I may have written to you or Mr. — — 
having full confidence in your tact and judgment as 
to what should be printed, and how it should be 
presented. I must only ask you . . . . " and then 
he goes on to indicate one letter which he wishes me 
to withhold. . . . . " As to the rest, I relinquish 
it to the mangling tooth of criticism." 
7* 



*54 



4 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 



As affirmed more than once already. Occult 
Philosophy in various countries and through 
different periods has remained substantially the 
same. At different times and places very different 
mythological efflorescences have been thrown off for 
the service of the populace ; but, underlying each 
popular religion, the religious knowledge of the 
initiated minority has been identical. Of course, 
the modern Western conception of what is right in 
such matters will be outraged by the mere idea of 
a religion which is kept as the property of the few, 
while a " false religion," as modern phraseology 
would put it, is served out to the common people. 
However, before -this feeling is permitted to land us 
in too uncompromising disapproval of the ancient 
hiders of the truth, it may be well to determine 
how far it is due to any intelligent conviction that 
the common herd would be benefited by teaching, 
which must be in its nature too refined and 
subtle for popular comprehension, and how far the 
feeling referred to, may be due to an acquired habit 
of looking on religion as something which it is im- 
portant to profess, irrespective of understanding it. 
No doubt, assuming that a man's eternal welfare 
depends upon his declaration, irrespective of com- 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 155 



prehension, of the right faith, among all the faiths 
he might have picked out from the lucky bag of 
birth and destiny — then it would be the sovereign 
duty of persons conscious of possessing such a faith 
to proclaim it from the house-tops. But, on the 
other hypothesis, that it cannot profit any man to 
mutter a formula of words without attaching sense 
to it, and that crude intelligences can only be ap- 
proached by crude sketches of religious ideas, there 
is more to be advanced on behalf of the ancient 
policy of reserve than seems at first sight obvious. 
Certainly the relations of the populace and the 
initiates, look susceptible of modification in the 
European world of the present day. The populace, 
in the sense of the public at large, including the 
finest intellects of the age, are at least as well able as 
those of any special class to comprehend meta- 
physical ideas. These finer intellects dominate 
public thought, so that no great ideas can triumph 
among the nations of Europe without their aid, 
while their aid can only be secured in the open 
market of intellectual competition.. \ Thus it ensues 
that the bare notion of an esotetic science superior 
to that offered in public to the scientific world, 
strikes the modern Western mind as an absurdity. 
With which very natural feeling it is only necessary 
at present here to fight, so far as to ask people not 
to be illogical in its application ; that is to say, not 
to assume that because it would never occur to a 
modern European coming into possession of a new 
truth to make a secret of it, and disclose it 
only to a fraternity under pledges of reserve, there- 
fore such an idea could never have occurred to 



1 5 6 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



an Egyptian priest or an intellectual giant of the 
civilization which, overspread India, according to 
some not unreasonable hypotheses, before Egypt 
began to be a seat of learning and art. The secret 
society system was as natural, indeed, to the ancient 
man of science, as the public system is in our own 
country and time. If or is the difference one of 
time and fashion merely. It hinges on to the great 
difference that is to be discerned in the essence of 
the pursuits in which learned men engage now, as 
compared with those they were concerned with in 
former ages. We have belonged to the material 
progress epoch, and the watchword of material 
progress has always been publicity. The initiates 
of ancient psychology belonged to the spiritual age, 
and the watchword of subjective development has 
always been secrecy. Whether in both cases the 
watchword is dictated by necessities of the situation 
is a question on which discussion might be possible ; 
but, at all events, these reflections are enough to 
show that it would be unwise to dogmatize too con- 
fidently on the character of the philosophy and the 
philosophers who could be content to hoard their 
wisdom and supply the crowd with a religion 
adapted rather to the understanding of its recipients 
than to the eternal verities. 

It is impossible now to form a conjecture as to 
the date or time at which occult philosophy began 
to take the shape in which we find it now. But 
though it may be reasonably guessed that, the last 
two or three thousand years have not passed over 
the devoted initiates who have held and transmitted 
it during that time, without their having contributed 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 157 



something towards its development, the proficiency 
of initiates belonging to the earliest periods with 
which history deals, appears to have been already 
so far advanced, and so nearly as wonderful as the 
proficiency of initiates in the present day, that we 
must assign a very great antiquity to the earliest 
beginnings of occult knowledge on this earth. 
Indeed the question cannot be raised without 
bringing us in contact with considerations that 
hint at absolutely startling conclusions in this 
respect. 

But, apart from specific archaeological speculations, 
it has been pointed out that " a philosophy so pro- 
found, a moral code so ennobling, and practical 
results so conclusive and so uniformly demonstrable, 
are not the growth of a generation, or even a single 
r epoch. Fact must have been piled upon fact, 
deduction upon deduction, science have begotten 
science, and myriads of the brightest human intel- 
lects have reflected upon the laws of Nature, before 
this ancient doctrine had taken concrete shape. 
The proofs of this identity of fundamental doctrine 
in the old religions are found in the prevalence 
of a system of initiation ; in the secret sacerdotal 
castes, who had the guardianship of mystical words 
of power, and a public display of a phenomenal 
control over natural forces indicating association 
with preter-human beings. Every approach to the 
mysteries of all these nations, was guarded with the 
same jealous care, and in all the penalty of death 
was inflicted upon all initiates of any degree who 
divulged the secrets entrusted to them." The book 
just quoted shows this to have been the case with 



158 THE OCCULT WORLD. 

the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries among the 
Chaldean Magi and the Egyptian Hierophants. The 
Hindu book of Brahminical ceremonies, the " Agru- 
shada Parikshai," contains the same law, which 
appears also to have been adopted by the Essenes, 
the Gnostics, and the .Thenrgic Neo-Platonists. 
Freemasonry has copied the old f orrqula, though 
its raison dletre has expired here with the expiration 
from' among freerpasons of the occult philosophy 
on which their forms and ceremonies are shaped 
to a larger extent than they generally conceive. 
Evidences of the identity spoken of may be traced 
in the vows, formulas,, rites, and doctrines of vari- 
ous ancient faiths, and it is affirmed by those whom 
I believe qualified to speak with authority as to the 
fact, " that not only is their memory still preserved 
in India; but also that the secret association is 
still alive, and as active as ever." 

As I have now, in support of the views just 
expressed, to make some quotations from Madame 
Blavatsky's great book, "Isis Unveiled," it is 
necessary to give certain explanations concerning 
the genesis of that work, for which the reader who 
has followed my narrative of occult experiences 
through the preceding pages, will be better prepared 
than he would have been previously. I have shown 
how, throughout the most ordinary incidents of her 
daily life, Madame Blavatsky is constantly in com- 
munication, by means of the system of psychological 
telegraphy that the initiates employ, with her 
superior " Brothers " in occultism. This state of the 
facts once realized, it will be easy to understand that 
in compiling such a work as "Isis," which em- 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY, 159 v 

bodies a complete explanation of all that can be 
told about occultism to the outer world, she would 
not be left exclusively to her own resources. The 
truth which Madame Blavatsky would be the last 
person in the world to wish "disguised, is that the 
assistance she derived from the Brothers, by occult 
agency, throughout the composition of her book, 
was so abundant and continuous that she is not so 
much the author of "Isis" as one of a group of 
collaboruteurs, by whom it was actually produced. 
I am given to understand that she set to work on 
" Isis" without knowing anything about the magni- 
tude of the task she was undertaking. She began t 
writing to dictation — the passages thus written not 
now standing first in the completed volumes — in 
compliance with the desire of her occult friends, and 
without knowing whether the composition on which 
she was engaged would turn out &n article for a 
newspaper, or an essay for a magazine, or a work of 
larger dimensions. But on and on it grew. Before 
going very far, of course, she came to understand 
what she was about ; and fairly launched on her 
task, she in turn contributed a good deal from her 
own natural brain. But the Brothers appear 
always to have been at work with her, not merely 
dictating through her brain as at first, but some- 
times employing those methods of " precipitation " 
of which I have myself been favoured with some 
examples, and by means of which quantities of 
actual manuscript in other handwritings than her 
own were produced while she slept. In the morn- 
ing she would sometimes get up and find as much 
as thirty slips added to the manuscript she had left 



i6o 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



on her table over-night. The book " Isis " is in fact 
as great a "phenomenon" — apart from the nature 
of its contents — as any of those I have described. 

The faults of the book, obvious to the general 
reader, will be thus explained, as well as the extra- 
ordinary value it possesses for those who may be 
anxious to explore as far as possible the mysteries 
o'f occultism. The deiflc powers which the Brothers 
enjoy cannot protect a literary work which is the 
joint production of several — even among their — 
minds, from the confusion of arrangement to which 
such a mode of composition inevitably gives rise. 
And besides confusion of arrangement, the book 
exhibits a heterogeneous variety of different styles, 
which mars its dignity as a literary work, and must 
prove both irritating and puzzling to the ordinary 
reader. But for those who possess the key to this 
irregularity of form, it is an advantage rather than 
otherwise. It will enable an acute reader to ac- 
count for some minor incongruities of statement 
occurring in different parts of the book. Beyond 
this it will enable him to recognize the voice, as it 
were, of the different authors as they take up the 
parable in turn. 

The book was written — as regards its physical 
production — at New York, where Madame Blavatsky 
was utterly unprovided with books of reference. It 
teems, however, with references to books of all sorts, 
including many of a very unusual character, and 
with quotations the exactitude of which may easily be 
verified at the great European libraries, as foot-notes 
supply the number of the pages, from which the 
passages taken are quoted. 



RECENT OCCULT PHENOMENA. 16 1 



I may now go on to collect some passages from 
" Isis, " the object of which is to &how the unity of 
the esoteric philosophy underlying various ancient 
religions, and the peculiar value which attaches for 
students of that philosophy, to pure Buddhism, a 
system which, of all those presented to the world, 
appears to supply us with occult philosophy in its 
least adulterated shape. Of course, the reader will 
guard himself from running away with the idea that 
Buddhism, as explained by writers who are not oc- 
cultists, can be accepted as an embodiment of their 
views. For example, one of the leading ideas of 
Buddhism, as interpreted by Western scholars, is that 
" Nirvana " amounts to annihilation. It is possible 
that Western scholars may be right in saying that 
the explanation of " Nirvana " supplied by exoteric 
Buddhism leads to this conclusion ; but that, at all 
events, is not the occult doctrine. 

" Nirvana, " it is stated in " Isis, " " means the 
certitude of personal immortality in spirit, not in 
soul, which, as a finite emanation, must certainly dis- 
integrate its particles, a compound of , human sen- 
sations, passions, and yearning for some objective 
kind of existence, before the immortal spirit of the 
Ego is quite freed, and henceforth secure against 
transmigration in any form. And how can man reach 
that state so long as the 'Upadana' that state of 
longing for life, more life, does not disappear from 
the sentient being, from the Ahancara clothed, how- 
ever, in a sublimated body ? It is the 6 Upadana ' 
or the intense desire that produces will, and it is 
will which develops force, and the latter generates 
matter, or an object having form. Thus the disem- 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



bodied Ego, through this wteimdying desire in him,, 
unconsciously furnishes the conditions of his suc- 
cessive self-procreations in various forms, which 
depend on his mental state, and ' Karma, ' the good 
or bad deeds of his preceding existence, commonly 
called 6 merit ' and * demerit. 5 " There is a world 
of suggestive metaphysical thought in this passage, 
which will serve at once to justify the view pro- 
pounded just now as regards the reach of Buddh- 
istic philosophy as viewed from the occult stand- 
point. 

The misunderstanding about the meaning of 
" Nirvana " is so general in the West, that before 
going on with explanations of the philosophy which 
this same misunderstanding has improperly dis- 
credited, it will be well to consider the following 
elucidation also : — 

"Annihilation means with the Buddhistical 
philosophy only a dispersion of matter, in whatever 
form or semblance of form it may be ; for every- 
thing that bears a shape was created, and thus must 
sooner or later perish, i. e., change that shape ; there- 
fore, as something temporary, though seeming to be 
permanent, it is but an illusion, 'Maya'; for as 
eternity has neither beginning nor end, the more or 
less prolonged duration of some particular form 
passes, as it were, like an instantaneous flash of 
lightning. Before we have the time to realize 
that we have seen it, it has gone and passed away 
for ever ; hence even our astral bodies, pure ether, 
are but illusions of matter so long as they retain 
their terrestrial outline. The latter changes, says 
the Buddhist, according to the merits or demerits 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 163 



of the person during his lifetime, and this is 
metempsychosis. When the spiritual entity breaks 
loose for ever from every particle of matter, then 
only it enters upon the eternal and unchangeable 
' Nirvana. 5 He exists in spirit, in nothing* as a 
form, a shape, a semblance, he is completely anni- 
hilated, and thus will die no more ; for spirit alone 
is no ' Maya/ but the only reality in an illusionary 
universe of ever-passing forms .... To accuse 
Buddhistical philosophy of rejecting a Supreme 
Being — God, and the soul's immortality — of 
Atheism, in short — on the ground that 'Nirvana' 
means annihilation, and 6 Svabhavat ' is not a person, 
but nothing, is simply absurd. The En (or Aym) 
of the Jewish Ensoph also means nihil, or nothing, 
that which is not (quo ad nos), but rio one has ever 
ventured to twit the Jews with atheism. In both 
cases the real meaning of the term nothing carries 
with it the idea that God is not a thing, not a con- 
crete or visible being to which a name expressive of 
any object known to us on earth may be applied 
with propriety." 

Again : " 6 Nirvana ' is the world of cause in which 
all deceptive effects or illusions of our senses . dis- 
appear. ' Nirvana 5 is the highest attainable sphere." 

The secret doctrines of the Magi of the pre- 
Yedic Buddhists, of the hierophants of the Egyptian 
Thoth or Hermes, were— we find it laid down in 
" Isis" — identical from the ,n identity that 

'applies equally to the seci of the adepts 

of whatever age or national ? the Chaldean 

Kabalists and the Jewish . " When we use 

the word Buddhists, we 1 to imply by 



164 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the 
followers of Gautama Buddha, or the modern 
Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of 
Sakyamuni, which, in its essence, is certainly iden- 
tical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanc- 
tuary — the pre-Vedic Brahmanisn. The schism of 
Zoroaster, as it is called, is a direct proof of it : for 
it was no schism, strictly speaking, but merely a 
partially public exposition of strictly monotheistic 
religious truths hitherto taught only in the sanc- 
tuaries, and that he had learned from the Brahmans. 
Zoroaster, the primeval insti tutor of sun-worship, 
cannot be called the founder of the dualistic system, 
neither was he the first to teach the unity of God, 
for he taught but what he had learned himself from 
the Brahmans. And that Zarathrusta, and his fol- 
lowers the Zoroastrians, had been settled in India 
before they immigrated into Persia, is also proved 
by Max Miiller. * That the Zoroastrians and their 
ancestors started from India/ he says. 6 during the 
Yaidic period, can be proved as distinctly as that 
the inhabitants of Massilia started from Greece. 
.... Many of the gods of the Zoroastrians come 
out ... as mere reflections and deflections of the 
gods of the Veda.' 

" If, now, we can prove, and we l4n do so on the 
evidence of the ' Kabala,' and the oldest traditions of 
the wisdom-religion, the philosophy of the old sanc- 
tuaries, that all these gods, whether of the Zoroas- 
trians or of the T7 ~' o/7 " nre but so many personated 
occult powers he faithful servants of the 

adepts ofseci -magic— we are on secure 

ground. 



ACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 165 



" Thus, whether we say that Kabalism and Gnos- 
ticism proceeded from Masdeanism or Zoroastrianism, 
it is all the same, unless we meant the exoteric 
worship, which we do not. . Likewise, and in this 
sense we may echo King, the author of the 6 Gnostics,' 
and several other archaeologists, and maintain that 
both the former proceeded from Buddhism, at once 
the simplest and most satisfying of philosophies, and 
which resulted in one of the purest religions in the 
world. . . . But whether among the Essenes or 
the Neo-platonists, or again among the innumerable 
struggling sects born but to die, the same doctrines, 
identical in substance and spirit, if not always in 
form, are encountered. By Buddhism, therefore, 
we mean that religion signifying literally the doc- 
trine of wisdom, and which by many ages antedates 
the metaphysical philosophy of Siddhartha Sakya- 
muni. " 

Modern Christianity has, of course, diverged widely 
from its own original philosophy, but the identity 
of this with the original philosophy of all religions 
is maintained in " Isis " in the course of an interest- 
ing argument. 

"Luke, who was a physician, is designated in 
the Syriac texts as Asaia, the Essaian or Essene. 
Josephus and Philo Judseus have sufficiently de- 
scribed this sect to leave no doubt in our mind that 
the Nazarene Reformer, after having received his 
education in their dwellings in the desert, and being 
duly initiated in the mysteries, preferred the free and 
independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and so sepa- 
rated, or inazare?iized,himse\f, from them, thus becom- 
ing a travelling Therapeute, or Nazaria, a healer. ■ 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



In his discourses and sermons Jesus always spoke 
in parables, and used metaphors with his audience. 
This habit was again that of the Essenians and 
the Nazarenes ; the Galileans, who dwelt in cities 
and villages, were never known to use such allego- 
rical language. Indeed, some of his disciples, being 
Galileans as well as himself, felt even surprised to 
find him using with the people such a form of 
expression. 6 Why speakest thou unto them in 
parables ? ' they often inquired. 6 Because it is 
^given unto you to know the mysteries of the king- 
S dom of Heaven ; but to them it is not given,' was 
i the reply, which was that of an initiate. £ There- 
fore, I speak unto them in parables, because they 
seeing, see not,, and hearing, they hear not, neither 
do they understand.' Moreover, we find Jesus 
expressing his thoughts ... in sentences which 
are purely Pythagorean, when, during the Sermon 
on the Mount, he says, c Give ye not that which is 
sacred to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before 
swine ; for the swine will tread them under their 
feet, and the dogs will turn and rend you.' Pro- 
fessor A. Wilder, the editor of Taylor's 6 Eleusiman 
Mysteries,' observes a 4 like disposition on the part 
of Jesus and Paul to classify their doctrines as 
esoteric and exoteric — the mysteries of the Kingdom 
of God for the apostles, and parables for the multi- 
tude. 'We speak wisdom,' says Paul, 6 among 
them that are perfect? or 'initiated.' In the Eleu- 
sinian and other mysteries the participants were 
always divided in two classes, the neophytes and 
the perfect, . . . The narrative of the Apostle Paul 
in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, has struck 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY. 



167 



several scholars well versed in the descriptions of 
the mystical rites of the initiation given by some 
classes as alluding most undoubtedly to the final 
Epopteia : £ I know a certain man — whether in body 
or outside of body I know not ; God knoweth — who 
was rapt into Paradise, and heard things ineffable 
which it is not lawful for a man to repeat.' These 
words have rarely, so far as we know, been regarded 
by commentators as an allusion to the beatific 
visions of an initiated seer ; but the phraseology is 
unequivocal. These things which it is not lawful 
to repeat, are hinted at in the same words, and the 
reason assigned for it is the same as that which we 
find repeatedly expressed by Plato, Proclus, Jam- 
blichus, Herodotus, and other classics. ' We speak 
wisdom only among them that are perfect,' says 
Paul ; the plain and undeniable translation of the 
sentence being: ' We speak of the profounder or 
final esoteric doctrines of the mysteries (which are 
denominated wisdom), only among them who are 
initiated. So in relation to the man who was rapt 
into Paradise — and who was evidently Paul him- 
self- — the Christian word Paradise having replaced 
that of Elysium." 

The final purposes of occult philosophy is to 
show what Man was, is, and will be. " That which 
survives- as an individuality," says 6 Isis, 5 " after the 
death of the body is the actual soul, which Plato, in 
the Timoeus and Gorgias calls the mortal soul ; for, 
according to the Hermetic doctrine, it throws off 
the more material particles at every progressive 
change into a higher sphere. .... The astral spirit 
is a faithful duplicate of the body in a physical and 



168 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



spiritual sense. The Divine, the highest immortal 
spirit, can be neither punished nor rewarded. To 
maintain such a doctrine would be at the same time 
absurd and blasphemous ; for it is not merely a 
flame lit at the • central and unextinguishable 
fountain of light, but actually a portion of it and 
of identical essence. It assures immortality to the 
individual astral being in proportion to the willing- 
ness of the latter to receive it. So long as the 
double man — i. e., the man of flesh and spirit — 
keeps within the limits of the law of spiritual con- 
tinuity ; so long as the divine spark lingers in him, 
however faintly, he is on the road to an immor- 
tality in the future state. But those who resign 
themselves to a materialistic existence, shutting out 
the divine radiance shed by their spirit, at the 
beginning of their earthly pilgrimage, and stifling 
the warning voice of that faithful sentry the con- 
science, which serves as a focus for the light in the 
soul — such beings as these, having left behind 
conscience and spirit, and crossed the boundaries of 
matter, will, of necessity, have to follow its laws." 

Again : " The secret doctrine teaches that man, 
if he wins immortality, will remain for ever the 
trinity that he is in life, and will continue so 
throughout all the spheres. The astral body, which 
in this life is covered by a gross physical envelope, 
becomes, when relieved of that covering by the pro- 
cess of corporeal death, in its turn the shell of 
another and more ethereal body. This begins 
developing from the moment of death, and becomes 
perfected when the astral body of the earthly form 
finally separates from it." 



TEACHINGS OF OCt. i6g 



The passages quoted, when re^ 
the explanations I have given, wi. 
reader, if so inclined, to take up "Isis" in 
hending spirit, and find his way to the rich \ 
precious metal which are buried in its pages. jlJ 
neither in " Isis " nor in any other book on occult 
philosophy which has been or seems likely to he 
written yet awhile, must anyone hope to obtain a 
cut-and-dried, straightforward, and perfectly clear 
account of the mysteries of birth, death, and the 
future. At first, in pursuing studies of this kind, 
one is irritated at the difficulty of getting at what the 
occultists really believe as regards the future state, the . 
nature of the life to come, and its general raise en scene. 
The well known religions have very precise views 
on these subjects, further rendered practical by the 
assurance some of them give that qualified persons, 
commissioned by churches to perform the duty, can 
shunt departing souls on to the right or the wrong 
lines, in accordance with consideration received. 
Theories of that kind have at any rate the merit of 
simplicity and intelligibility, but they are not, 
perhaps, satisfactory to the mind as regards their 
details. After a very little investigation of the 
matter, the student of occult philosophy will realize 
that on that path of knowledge he will certainly 
meet with no conceptions likely to outrage his 
purest idealization of God and the life to come. 
He will soon feel that the scheme of ideas he is 
exploring is lofty and dignified to the utmost 
limits that the human understanding can reach. But 
it will remain vague, and he will seek for explicit 

statements on this or that point, until 1 J a 

8 



.£ OCCULT WORLD. 



aat the absolute truth about the origin 
aes of the human soul may be too subtle 
fcricate to be possibly expressible in straight- 
,ard language. Perfectly clear ideas may be 
ttainable for the purified minds of advanced 
scholars in occultism, who, by entire devotion of 
every faculty to the pursuit and prolonged assimila- 
tion of such ideas, come at length to understand 
them with the aid of peculiar intellectual powers 
specially expanded for the purpose ; but it does not 
at all follow that with the best will in the world 
such persons must necessarily be able to draw up 
# an occult creed which should bring the whole 
theory of the universe into the compass of a dozen 
lines. The study of occultism, even by men of the 
world, engaged in ordinary pursuits as well, may 
readily enlarge and purify the understanding, to 
the extent of arming the mind, so to speak, with 
tests that will detect absurdity in any erroneous 
religious hypotheses ; but the absolute structure of 
occult belief is something which, from its nature, 
can only be built up slowly in the mind of each 
intellectual architect. And I imagine that a very 
vivid perception of this on their part explains the 
reluctance of occultists even to attempt the straight- 
forward explanation of their doctrines. They know 
that really vital plants of knowledge, so to speak, 
must grow up from the germ in each man's mind, 
and cannot be transplanted into the strange soil of 
an untrained understanding, in a complete state of 
mature growth. They are ready enough to supply 
seed, but every man must grow his own tree of 
1 1 1 I } himself. As the adept himself is not 



TEACHINGS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY, 171 



made, but becomes so, — in a minor degree, the 
person who merely aspires to comprehend the adept 
and his views of things must develop such compre- 
hension for himself, by thinking out rudimentary 
ideas to their legitimate conclusions. 

These considerations fit in with, and do some- 
thing towards elucidating, the reserve of occultism, 
and they further suggest • an explanation of what 
will at once seem puzzling to a reader of " Isis," who 
takes it up by the light of the present narrative. If 
great parts of the book, as I have asserted, are 
really the work of actual adepts, who know of their 
own knowledge what is the actual truth about 
many of the mysteries discussed, why have they 
not said plainly what they meant, instead of beating 
about the bush, and suggesting arguments derived 
from this or that ordinary source, from literary or 
historical evidence, from abstract speculation con- 
cerning the harmonies of Nature ? The answer 
seems to be, firstly, that they could not well write, 
"We know that so and so is the fact," without 
being asked, " How do you know ?" — and it is mani- 
festly impossible that they could reply to this 
question without going into details, that it would 
be " unlawful," as a Biblical writer would say, to 
disclose, or without proposing to guarantee their 
testimony by manifestions of powers which it 
would be obviously impracticable for them to keep 
always at hand for the satisfaction of each reader 
of the book in turn. Secondly, I imagine that, in 
accordance with the invariable principle of trying 
less to teach than to encourage spontaneous develop- 
ment, they have aimed in " Isis," rather at producing 



172 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



an effect on the reader's mind, than at shooting in 
a store of previously accumulated facts. They have 
shown that Theosophy, or Occult Philosophy, is no 
new candidate for the world's attention, but is 
really a restatement of principles which have been 
recognized from the very infancy of mankind. The 
historic sequence which establishes this view is 
distinctly traced through the successive evolutions 
of the philosophical schools, in a manner which it 1 is 
impossible for me to attempt in a work of these 
dimensions, and the theory laid down is illustrated 
with abundant accounts of the experimental demon- 
strations of t occult power ascribed to various 
thaumaturgists. - The authors of "Isis," have express- 
ly ref rained'f rom saying more than might conceivably 
be said by a writer who was not an adept, supposing 
him to have access to all the literature of the 
subject and an enlightened comprehension of its 
meaning. 

But once realize the real position of the authors 
or inspirers of " Isis," and the value of any argument 
on which you find them launched is enhanced 
enormously above the level of the relatively 
commonplace considerations advanced on its behalf. 
The adepts may not choose to bring forward other 
than exoteric evidence in favour of any particular 
thesis they wish to support, but if they wish to sup- 
port it, that fact alone will be of enormous 
significance for any reader who, in indirect ways, 
has reached a comprehension of the authority with 
which they are entitled to speak. 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 1 



I CANNOT let a second edition of this book appear 
without recording some* at least, of the experiences 
which have befallen me since its preparation. The 
most important of these, indeed, are concerned with 
fragmentary instruction I have been privileged to re- 
ceive from the Brothers in reference to the great 
truths of cosmology which their spiritual insight has 
enabled them to penetrate. But the exposition even 
of the little, relatively, that I have learned on this 
head would exact a more elaborate treatise than I 
can attempt at present. 2 And the purpose of the 
present volume is to expound the outer facts of the 
situation rather than to analyze a system of philos- 
ophy. This is not entirely inaccessible to exoteric 
students, apart from what may be regarded as direct 
revelation from the Brothers. Though almost all 
existing occult literature is unattractive in its form, 
and rendered purposely obscure by the use of an 
elaborate symbology, it does contain a great deal of 
information that can be distilled from the mass by 
the application of sufficient patience. Some indus- 
trious students of that literature have proved this. 
Whether the masters of occult philosophy will ulti- 

1 Added to the second English edition. 

2 Subsequently published as Esoteric Buddhism. 



174 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



mately consent to (the complete exposition in plain 
language of the state of the facts regarding the 
spiritual constitution of Man, remains to be seen. 
Certainly, even if they are still reticent in a way that 
no ordinary observer can comprehend, they are more 
disposed to be communicative at this moment than 
they have been for a long time past. 

But the first thing to do is to dissipate as much as 
possible the dogged disbelief that encrusts the West- 
ern mind as to the existence of any abnormal persons 
who can be regarded as masters of True Philosophy 
— distinguished from all the speculations that have 
tormented the world — and as to the abnormal na- 
ture of their faculties. I have endeavored already 
to point out plainly, but may as well here emphasize 
the reason why I dwell upon, the phenomena which 
exhibit these faculties. Rightly regarded, these are 
the credentials of the spiritual teaching which their 
authors supply. Firstly, indeed, in themselves ab- 
normal phenomena accomplished by the will-power 
of living men must be intensely interesting for every 
one endowed with an honest love of science. They 
open out new scientific horizons. It is as certain as 
the sun's next rising that the forward pressure of 
scientific discovery, advancing slowly as it does in 
its own grooves, will ultimately, and probably at no 
very distant date, introduce the ordinary world to 
some of the superior scientific knowledge already en- 
joyed by the masters of occultism. Faculties will 
be acquired by exoteric investigation that will bring 
the outworks of science a step or two nearer the 
comprehension of some of the phenomena I have de- 
scribed in the present volume, ylnd meanwhile it 



LA TER OCCUL T PHENOMENA. 1 7 5 

seems to me very interesting to get a glimpse before-- 
hand of achievements which we should probably find 
engaging the eager attention of a future generation, 
if we really could, as Tennyson suggests — 

— "sleep through terms of mighty wars, 

And wake on science grown to more, 
On secrets of the brain, the stars, 
As wild as aught of fairy lore." 

x But even superior to their scientific interest is the 
importance of the lesson conveyed by occult phenom- 
ena, when these distinctly place their authors in a 
commanding position of intellectual superiority as 
compared with the world at large. They show most 
undeniably that these men have gone far ahead of 
their contemporaries in a comprehension of Nature 
as exemplified in this world ; that they have acquired 
the power of cognizing events by other means than 
the material senses ; that while their bodies are at 
one place, their perceptions may be at another, and 
that they have consequently solved the great prob- 
lem as to whether the Ego of man is a something 
distinct from his perishable frame. From all other 
teachers we can but find out what has been thought 
probable in reference to the soul or spirit of man : 
from them we can find out what is the fact ; and if 
that is not a sublime subject of inquiry, surely it 
would be difficult to say what is. But we cannot 
read poetry till we have learned the alphabet ; and, 
if the combinations b-a ba, and so on are found to be 
insufferably trivial and uninteresting, the fastidious 
person who objects to such foolishness will certainly 
never be able to read the " Idylls of the King.". 
So I return from the clouds to my patient record 



176 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



of phenomena, and to the incidents which have con- 
firmed the experiences and conclusions set forth in 
the previous chapter of this book, since my return to 
India. 

The very first incident which took place was in the 
nature of a pleasant greeting from my revered friend, 
Koot Hoomi. I had written to him (per Madame 
Blavatsky, of course) shortly before leaving London, 
and had expected to find a letter from him awaiting 
my arrival at Bombay. But no such letter had been 
received, as I found when I reached the headquar- 
ters of the Theosophical Society, where I had ar- 
ranged to stay for a few days before going on to my 
destination up country. I got in late at night, and 
nothing remarkable happened then. The following 
morning, after breakfast, I was sitting talking with 
Madame Blavatsky in the room that had been al- 
lotted to me. We were sitting at different sides of 
a large square table in the middle of the room, anc^ 
the full daylight was shining. There was no one 
else in the room. Suddenly, down upon the table 
before me, but to my right hand, Madame Blavatsky 
being to my left, there fell a thick letter. It ell 
" out of nothing," so to speak ; it was materialized, 
or reintegrated in the air before my eyes. It was 
Koot Hoomi's expected reply, — a deeply interesting 
letter, partly concerned -with private matters and 
replies to questions of mine, and partly with some 
large, though as yet shadowy, revelations of occult 
philosophy, the first sketch of this that I had re- 
ceived. Now, of course, I know what some readers 
will say to this (with a self-satisfied smile) — " wires, 
springs, concealed apparatus," and so forth ; but first 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 177 



all the suggestion would have been grotesquely ab- 
surd to any one who had been present ; and secondly, 
it is unnecessary to argue about objections of this sort 
all over again ah initio every time. There were no 
more wires and springs about the room I am now re- 
ferring to, than about the breezy hill-tops at Simla, 
where some of our earlier phenomena took place. I 
may add, moreover, that some months later an occult 
note was dropped before a friend of mine, a Bengal 
civilian, who has become an active member of the 
Theosophical Society, at a dak bungalow in the 
north of India ; and that later again, at the head- 
quarters of the Theosophical Society at Bombay, a 
letter was dropped, according to a previous promise, 
out in the open air in the presence of six or seven 
witnesses. 

For some time the gift of the letter from Koot 
Hoomi in the way I have described was the only 
phenomenon accorded to me, and, although my cor- 
respondence continued, I was not encouraged to ex- 
pect any further displays of abnormal power. The 
higher authorities of the occult worlcl, indeed, had 
by this time put a very much more stringent prohi- 
bition upon such manifestations than had been in 
operation the previous summer at Simla. The effect 
of the manifestations then accorded was not consid- 
ered to have been satisfactory on the whole. A 
good deal of acrimonious discussion and bad feeling 
had ensued ; and I imagine that this was conceived 
to outweigh, in its injurious effect on the progress of 
the Theosophical movement, the good effect of the 
phenomena on the few persons who appreciated them. 

When I went up to Simla in August, 1881, there- 
12 



178 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



fore, I had no expectation of further events of an 
unusual nature. Nor have I any stream of anecdotes 
to relate which will bear comparison with those de- 
rived from the experience of the previous year. But 
none the less was the progress of a certain undertak- 
ing in which I became concerned — the establish- 
ment of a Simla branch of the Theosophical Society 
— interspersed with little incidents of a phenomenal 
nature. When this Society was formed, many letters 
passed between Koot Hoomi and ourselves which 
were not in every case transmitted through Madame 
Blavatsky. In one case, for example, Mr. Hume, 
who became president for the first year of the new 
Society — the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society, 
as it was decided it should be called — got a note 
from Koot Hoomi inside a letter received through 
the post from a person wholly unconnected with our 
occult pursuits, who w r as writing to him in connection 
with some municipal business. I myself, dressing 
for the evening, have found an expected letter in my 
coat-pocket, and on another occasion under my pil- 
low in the morning. On one occasion, having just 
received a letter by the mail from England which 
contained matter in which I thought she would be 
interested, I went up to Madame Blavatsky's writ- 
ing-room and read it to her. As I read it, a few 
lines of writing, comment upon what I w r as reading, 
were formed on a sheet of blank paper which lay be- 
fore her. She actually saw the writing form itself, 
and called to me, pointing to the paper w r here it lay. 
There I recognized Koot Hoomrs hand — and his 
thought, for the comment was to the effect, " Did n't 
I tell you so?" and referred back to something he 
had said in a previous letter. 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



By-the-by, it may be as well to inform the reader 
that during the whole of the visit to Simla, of which 
I am now speaking, for several months before it, and 
until several months later, Colonel Olcott was in 
Ceylon, where he was engaged in a very successful 
lecturing tour on behalf of the Theosophical Society, 
in reference to some of the phenomena which oc- 
curred at Simla in 1880, when both he and Madame 
Blavatsky were present. Ill-natured and incredu- 
lous people — when it would be glaringly absurd 
about some particular phenomenon to say that Ma- 
dame Blavatsky had done it by trickery of her own 
— -used to be fond of suggesting that the wire-puller 
must be Colonel Olcott. In some of the newspaper 
criticisms of the first edition of this book, even, it 
has been suggested that Colonel Olcott must be the 
writer of the letters that I innocently ascribe to Koot 
Hoomi, Madame Blavatsky merely manipulating their 
presentation. But inasmuch as all through the au- 
tumn of 1881, while Colonel Olcott was at Ceylon 
and I at Simla, the letters continued to come, alter- 
nating day by day sometimes with the letters we 
wrote, my critics, in future, must acknowledge that 
this hypothesis is played out. 

For me myself — as I think it will also be for my 
appreciative readers — the most interesting fact con- 
nected with my Simla experience of 1881 was this : 
During the period in question I got into relations 
with one other of the Brothers, besides Koot Hoomi. 
It came to pass that in the progress of his own de- 
velopment it was necessary for Koot Hoomi to retire 
for a period of three months into absolute seclusion, 
as regards not merely the body — which in the case 



i8o 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



of an Adept may be secluded in the remotest corner 
of the earth without that arrangement checking the 
activity of his " astral" intercourse with mankind — 
but as regards the whole potent Ego with whom we 
had dealings. Under these circumstances one of the 
Brothers with whom Koot Hoomi was especially as- 
sociated agreed, rather reluctantly at first, to pay 
attention to the Simla Eclectic Society, and keep us 
going during Koot Hoomi's absence with a course of 
instruction in occult philosophy. The change which 
came over the character of our correspondence when 
our new master took us in hand was very remark- 
able. Every letter that emanated from Koot Hoomi 
had continued to bear the impress of his gently mellif- 
luous style. He would write half a page at any time 
rather than run the least risk of letting a brief or 
careless phrase hurt anybody's feelings. His hand- 
writing, too, was always very legible and regular. 
Our new master treated us very differently : he de- 
clared himself almost unacquainted with our lan- 
guage, and wrote a very rugged hand which it was 
sometimes difficult to decipher. He did not beat 
about the bush with us at all. If we wrote out an 
essay on some occult ideas we had picked up, and 
sent it to him, asking if it was right, it would some- 
times come back with a heavy red line scored through 
it, and " No " written on the margin. On one occa- 
sion one of us had written, " Can you clear my con- 
ceptions about so and so?" The annotation found 
in the margin when the paper was returned was, 
" How can I clear what you have n't got! " and so 
on. But with all this we made progress under 
M , and by degrees the correspondence, which 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 181 



began on his side with brief notes, scrawled in the 
roughest manner on bits of coarse Thibetan paper, 
expanded into considerable letters sometimes. And 
it must be understood that while his rough and ab- 
rupt ways formed an amusing contrast with the ten- 
der gentleness of Koot Hoomi, there was nothing in 
these to impede the growth of our attachment to him 
as we began to feel ourselves tolerated by him as 
pupils a little more willingly than at first. Some of 
my readers, I am sure, will realize what I mean by 
" attachment " in this case. I use a colorless word 
deliberately to avoid the parade of feelings which 
might not be generally understood; but I can assure 
them that in the course of prolonged relations — 
even though merely of the epistolary kind — with a 
personage who, though a man like the rest of us as 
regards his natural place in creation, is elevated so 
far above ordinary men as to possess some attributes 
commonly considered divine, feelings are engendered 
which are too deep to be lightly or easily described. 

It was by M quite recently that a little mani- 
festation of force was given for my gratification, the 
importance of which turned on the fact that Madame 
Blavatsky was entirely uninfluential in its produc- 
tion, and eight hundred miles away at the time. For 
the first three months of my acquaintance with him, 

M had rigidly adhered to the principle he laid 

down when he agreed to correspond with the Simla 
Eclectic Society during Koot Hoomi's retirement. 
He would correspond with us, but would perform no 
phenomena whatever. This narrative is so much 
engaged with phenomena that I cannot too con- 
stantly remind the reader that these incidents were 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



scattered over a long period of time, and that as a 
rule nothing is more profoundly distasteful to the 
great adepts than the production of wonders in the 
outside world. Ordinary critics of these, when they 
have been thus exceptionally accorded, will con- 
stantly argue, " But why did not the Brothers do so 
and so differently? then the incident would have 
been much more convincing." I repeat that the 
Brothers, in producing abnormal phenomena now and 
then, are not trying to prove their existence to an 
intelligent jury of Englishmen. They are simply 
letting their existence become perceptible to persons 
with a natural gravitation towards spirituality and 
mysticism. It is not too much to say that all the 
while they are scrupulously avoiding the delivery of 
direct proof of a nature calculated to satisfy the com- 
monplace mind. For the present, at all events, they 
prefer that the crass, materialistic Philistines of .the 
sensual, selfish world should continue to cherish the 
conviction that " the Brothers " are myths. They 
reveal themselves, therefore, by signs and t hints which 
are only likely to be comprehended by people with 
some spiritual insight or affinity. True the appear- 
ance of this book is permitted by them, — no page 
of it would have been written if a word from Koot 
Hoomi had indicated disapproval on his part, — 
and the phenomenal occurrences herein recorded are 
really in many cases absolutely complete and irresis- 
tible proofs for me, and therefore for any one who is 
capable of understanding that I am telling the exact 
truth. But the Brothers, I imagine, know quite 
well that, large as the revelation has been, it may 
safely be passed before the eyes of the public at 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



183 



large just because the herd, whose convictions they 
do not wish to reach, can be relied upon to reject it. 
The situation may remind the reader of the farceur 
who undertook to stand on Waterloo Bridge with a, 
hundred real sovereigns on a tray, offering to sell> 
them for a shilling apiece, and who wagered that he 
would so stand for an hour without getting rid of his 
stock. He relied on the stupidity of the passers-by, 
who would think themselves too clever to be taken 
in. So with this little book. It contains a straight- 
forward statement of absolute truths, which, if peo- 
ple could only believe them, would revolutionize the 
world; and the statement is fortified by unimpeach- 
able credentials. But the bulk of mankind will be 
blinded to this condition of things by their own van- 
ity and inability to assimilate super-materialistic 
ideas, and none will be seriously affected but those 
who are qualified to benefit by comprehending. 

Readers of the latter class will readily appreciate 
the way the phenomena that I have had to record 
have thus followed in the track of my own growing 
convictions, confirming these as they have in turn 
been inferentially constructed, rather than provok- 
ing and enforcing them in the first instance. And 
this has been emphatically the case with the one or 
two phenomena that have latterly been accorded by 

M . It was in friendship and kindness that 

these were given, long after all idea of confirming my 
belief in the Brothers was wholly superfluous and 

out of date. M came indeed to wish that I 

should have the satisfaction of seeing him (in the 
astral body of course), and would have arranged for 
this in Bombay, in January, when I went down there 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



for " a day to meet my wife, who was returning from 
England, had the atmospherical and other conditions 
just at that period permitted it. But, unfortunately 

for me, these were not favorable. As M wrote 

in one of several little notes I received from him dur- 
ing that day and the following morning, before my 
departure from the headquarters of the Theosophical 
Society, where I was staying, even they, the Broth- 
ers, could not " work miracles ; " and though to the 
ordinary spectator there may be but little difference 
between a miracle and any one of the phenomena 
that the Brothers do sometimes accomplish, these 
latter are really results achieved by the manipulation 
of natural laws and forces, and are subject to ob- 
stacles which are sometimes practically insuperable; 

But M , as it happened, was enabled to show 

himself to one member of the Simla Eclectic Society, 
who happened to be at Bombay a day or two before 
my visit. The figure was clearly visible for a few 
moments, and the face distinctly recognized by my 
friend, who had previously seen a portrait of M . 

Then it passed across the open door of an inner 
room in which it had appeared, in a direction where 
there was no exit ; and when my friend, who had 
started forward in its pursuit, entered the inner 
room, it was no longer to be seen. On two or three 
other occasions previously, M had made his as- 
tral figure visible to other persons about the head- 
quarters of the Society, where the constant presence 
of Madame Blavatsky and one or two other persons 
of highly sympathetic magnetism, the purity of life 
of all habitually resident there, and the constant in- 
fluences poured in by the Brothers themselves, ren- 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 185 

der the production of phenomena immeasurably easier 
than elsewhere. 

And this brings me back to certain incidents 
which took place recently at my own house at Alla- 
habad, when, as I have already stated, Madame Bla- 
vatsky herself was eight hundred miles off, at Bom- 
bay. Colonel Olcott, then on his way to Calcutta, 
was staying with us for a day or two in passing. 

He was accompanied by a , young native mystic, 
ardently aspiring to be accepted by the Brothers as 
a chela, or pupil, and the magnetism thus brought to 
the house established conditions which for a short 
time rendered some manifestations possible. Re- 
turning home one evening shortly before dinner, I 
found two or three telegrams awaiting me, enclosed 
in the usual way, in envelopes securely fastened be- 
fore being sent out from the telegraph office. The 
messages were all from ordinary people, on common- 
place business ; but inside one of the envelopes I 

found a little folded note from M- . The mere 

fact that it had been thus transfused by occult meth- 
ods inside the closed envelope was a phenomenon in 
itself, of course (like many of the same kind that I 
have described before) ; but I need not dwell on 
this point, as the feat that had been performed, and 
of which the note gave me information, was even 
more obviously wonderful. The note made me search 
in my writing-room for a fragment of a plaster bas- 
relief that M had just transported instantane- 
ously from Bombay. Instinct took me at once to the 
place where I felt that it was most likely I should 
find the thing which had been brought — the drawer 
of my writing-table, exclusively devoted to occult 



i86 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



correspondence ; and there, accordingly, I found a 
broken corner from a plaster slab, with M -'s sig- 
nature marked upon it. I telegraphed at once to 
Bombay, to ask whether anything special had just 
happened, and next day received back word that 

M had smashed a certain plaster portrait, and 

had carried off a piece. In due course of time I re- 
ceived a minute statement from Bombay, attested by 
the signatures of seven persons in all, which was, as 
regards all essential points, as follows : — 

"At about seven in the evening the following 
persons " (five are enumerated, including Madame 
Blavatsky) " were seated at the dining-table, at tea, 
in Madame Blavatsky's veranda opposite the door 
in the red screen separating her first writing-room 
from the long veranda. The two halves of the 
writing-room were wide open, and the dining-table, 
being about two feet from the door, we could all see 
plainly everything in the room. About five or seven 
minutes after, Madame Blavatsky gave a start. We 
all began to watch. She then looked all round her, 
and said, 6 What is he going to do ? ' and repeated 
the same twice or thrice without looking at or refer- 
ring to any of us. We all suddenly heard a knock 

— a loud noise, as of something falling and breaking 

— behind the door of Madame Blavatsky's writing- 
room, when there was not a soul there at the time. 
A still louder noise was heard, and we all rushed in. 
The room was empty and silent; but jusfc behind the 
red cotton door, where we had heard the noise, we 
found fallen on the ground a Paris plaster mould, 
representing a portrait, broken into several pieces. 
After carefully picking the pieces up to the smallest 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 187 



fragments, and examining it, we found the nail, on 
which the mould had hung for nearly eighteen 
months, strong as ever in the wall. The iron wire 
loop of the portrait was perfectly intact, and not even 
bent. We spread the pieces on the table, and tried 
to arrange them, thinking they could be glued, as 
Madame Blavatsky seemed very much annoyed, as 
the mould was the work of one of her friends in New 
York. We found that one piece, nearly square and 
of about two inches, in the right corner of the mould, 
was wanting. We went into the room and searched 
for it, but could not find it. Shortly afterwards, 
Madame Blavatsky suddenly arose and went into her 
room, shutting the door after her. In a minute she 

called Mr. in, and showed to him a small piece 

of paper. We all saw and read it afterwards. It 
was in the same handwriting in which some of us 
have received previous communications, and the same 
familiar initials. It told us that the missing piece 
was taken by the Brother whom Mr. Sinnett calls 
6 the Illustrious,' 1 to Allahabad, and that she should 
collect and carefully preserve the remaining pieces." 

The statement goes after this into some further 
details, which are unimportant as regards the general 

1 "My illustrious friend," was the expression I originally used in 

application to the Brother I have here called M , and it got shortened 

afterwards into the pseudonym given in the statement. It is difficult 
sometimes to know what to call the Brothers, even when one knows 
their real names. The less these are promiscuous^ handled the better, 
for various reasons, among which is the profound annoyance which it 
gives their real disciples if such names get into frequent and disrespect- 
ful use among scoffers. I regret now that Koot Hoomi's name, so 
ardently venerated by all who have been truly subject to his influence, 
should ever have been allowed to appear in full in the text of the 
book. 



i88 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



reader, and is signed by the four native friends who 
were with Madame Blavatsky at the time the plaster 
portrait was broken. A postscript, signed by three 
other persons, adds that these three came in shortly 
after the actual breakage, and found the rest of the 
party trying to arrange the fragments on the table. 

It will be understood, of course, but I may as well 
explicitly state, that the evening to which the above 
narrative relates was the same on which I found Mr. 

's note inside my telegram at Allahabad, and 

the missing piece of the cast in my drawer ; and no 
appreciable time appears to have elapsed between 
the breakage of the cast at Bombay and the delivery 
of the piece at Allahabad, for though I did not note 
the exact minute at which I found the fragment — 
and, indeed, it may have been already in my drawer 
for some little time before I came home — the time 
was certainly between seven and eight, probably about 
half-past seven or a quarter to eight. And there is 
nearly half an hour's difference of longitude between 
Bombay and Allahabad, so that seven at Bombay 
would be nearly half -past at Allahabad. Evidently, 
therefore, the plaster fragment, weighing two or 
three ounces, was really brought from Bombay to 
Allahabad, to all intents and purposes, instanta- 
neously. That it was veritably the actual piece miss- 
ing from the cast broken at Bombay was proved a 
few days later, for all the remaining pieces at Bom- 
bay were carefully packed up and sent to me, and 
the fractured edges of my fragment fitted exactly 
into those of the defective corner, so that I was en- 
abled to arrange the pieces all together again and 
complete the cast. 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA, 189 



The shrewd reader — of the class of persons who 
would never have been " taken in " by the man who 
sold sovereigns on Waterloo Bridge — will laugh at 
the whole story. A lump of plaster of Paris sent a 
distance of eight hundred miles across India in the 
wink of an eye by the will-power of somebody Heaven 
knows where at the time — probably in Thibet ! The 
shrewd person could not manage the feat himself, so 
he is convinced that nobody else could, and that the 
event never occurred. Rather believe that the seven 
witnesses at Bombay and the present writer are tell- 
ing a pack of >lies than that there can be any one 
living in the world who knows secrets of Nature, and 
can employ forces of Nature that shrewd persons of 
the Times-vending, " Jolly Bank-holiday, three-penny 
'bus young man " type know nothing about. Some 
friends of mine, criticising the first edition of this 
book, have found fault with me for not adopting a 
more respectful and conciliatory tone towards scienti- 
fic scepticism when confronting the world with allega- 
tions of the kind these pages contain. But I fail to 
see any motive for hypocrisy in the matter. A great 
number of intelligent people in these days are shak- 
ing themselves free at once from the fetters of ma- 
terialism forged by modern science and the entangled 
superstition of ecclesiastics, resolved that the Church 
herself, with all her mummeries, shall fail to make 
them irreligious ; that science itself, with all its con- 
ceit, shall not blind them to the possibilities of Na- 
ture. These are the people who will understand my 
narrative and the sublimity of the revelations it em- 
bodies. But all people who have been either thor- 
oughly enslaved by dogma, or thoroughly materialized 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



by modern science, have finally lost some faculties, 
and will be unable to apprehend facts that do not 
fit in with their preconceived ideas. They will mis- 
take their own intellectual deficiencies for inherent 
impossibility of occurrence on the part of the fact 
described ; they will be very rude in thought and 
speech towards persons of superior intuition, who do 
find themselves able to believe and, in a certain 
sense, to understand ; and it seems to me that the 
time has come for letting the commonplace scoffers 
realize plainly that in the estimation of their more 
enlightened contemporaries they do indeed seem a 
Boeotian herd, in which the better educated and the 
lesser educated — the orthodox savant and the city 
clerk — differ merely in degree and not in kind. 

The morning after the occurrence of the incident 
just detailed, B R -, the young native aspir- 
ant for chela-ship, who had accompanied Colonel 
Olcott, and was staying at my house, gave me a note 
from Koot Hoomi, which he found under his pillow 
in the morning. One which I had written to Koot 

Hoomi, and had given to B E the previous 

day, had been taken, he told me, at night, before he 
slept. The note from Koot Hoomi was a short one, 
in the course of which he said, " To force phenomena 
in the presence of difficulties magnetic and other is 
forbidden as strictly as for a bank cashier to disburse 
money which is only entrusted to him. Even to do 
this much for you so far from the headquarters would 

be impossible but for the magnetisms O and 

B R have brought with them — and I could 

do no more." Not fully realizing the force of the 
final words in this passage,' and more struck by a 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



191 



previous passage, in which Koot Hoomi Wx 
is easy for us to give phenomenal proofs v 
have necessary conditions " — I wrote next day , 
gesting one or two things which I thought might 
done to take additional advantage of the conditions 
presented by the introduction into my house of avail- 
able magnetism different from that of Madame 
Blavatsky, who had been so much, however absurdly, 
suspected of imposing on me. I gave this note to 

B E on the evening of the 13th of March 

— the plaster fragment incident had taken place on 
the 11th — and on the morning of the 14th I re- 
ceived a few words from Koot Hoomi, simply saying 
that what I proposed was impossible, and that he 
would write more fully through Bombay. When in 
due time I so heard from him, I learned that the 
limited facilities of the moment had been exhausted, 
and that my suggestions could not be complied with ; 
but the importance of the explanations I have just 
been giving turns on the fact that I did, after all, 
exchange letters with Koot Hoomi at an interval of 
a few hours, at a time when Madame Blavatsky was 
at the other side of India. 

The account I have just been giving of the instan- 
taneous transmission of the plaster of Paris fragment 
from Bombay to Allahabad forms a fitting prelude 
to a remarkable series of incidents I have next to re- 
cord. The story now to be told has already been 
made public in India, having been fully related in 
"Psychic Notes," 1 a periodical temporarily brought 
out at Calcutta, with the object especially of record- 
ing incidents connected with the spiritualistic medi- 

1 Newton & Co., Calcutta. 



iHE OCCULT WORLD. 



ivlr. Eglinton, who stayed for some months 
~ttta during the past cold season. The inci- 
was hardly addressed to the outside world; 
,ther to spiritualists, who while infinitely closer to a 
comprehension of occultism than people still wrapped 
in the darkness of orthodox incredulity, about all 
super-material phenomena, are nevertheless to a large 
extent inclined to put a purely spiritualistic explana- 
tion on all such phenomena. In this way it had 
come to pass that many spiritualists in India were 
inclined to suppose that we who believed in the 
Brothers were in some way misled by extraordinary 
mediumship on the part of Madame Blavatsky. 
And at first the " spirit guides " who spoke through 
Mr. Eglinton confirmed this view. But a very re- 
markable change came over their utterances at last. 
Shortly before Mr. Eglinton' s departure from Cal- 
cutta, they declared their full knowledge of the 
Brotherhood, naming the " Illustrious " by that des- 
ignation, and declaring that they had been appointed 
to work in concert with the Brothers thenceforth. 
On this aspect of affairs, Mr. Eglinton left India in 
the steamship Vega, sailing from Calcutta, I believe, 
on the 16th of March. A few clays later, on the morn- 
ing of the 24th, at Allahabad, I received a letter 
from Koot Hoomi, in which he told me that he was 
going to visit Mr. Eglinton on board the Vega at 
sea, convince him thoroughly as to the existence of 
the Brothers, and if successful in doing this notify 
the fact immediately to certain friends of Mr. Eglin- 
ton's at Calcutta. The letter had been written a 
day or two before, and the night between the 21st 
and 22nd was mentioned as the period when the as- 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



tral visit would be paid. Now the full expianauun 
of all the circumstances under which this startling 
programme was carried out will take some little time, 
but the narrative will be the more easily followed if 
I first describe the outline of what took place in a 
few words. The promised visit was actually paid, 
and not only that but a letter written by Mr. Eglin- 
ton at sea on the 24th describing it — and giving in 
his adhesion to a belief in the Brothers fully and 
completely — was transported instantaneously that 
same evening to Bombay, where it was dropped 
(" out of nothing " like the first letter I received on 
my return to India) before several witnesses ; by 
them identified and tied up with cards written on by 
them at the time ; then taken away again and a few 
moments later dropped down, cards from Bombay 
and all, among Mr. Eglinton's friends at Calcutta 
who had been told beforehand to expect a communi- 
cation from the Brothers at that time. All the inci- 
dents of this series are authenticated by witnesses and 
documents, and there is no rational escape, for any 
one who looks into the evidence, from the necessity 
of admitting that the various phenomena as I have 
just described them have actually been accomplished, 
" impossible " as ordinary science will declare them. 

For the details of the various incidents of the 
series, I may refer the reader to the account pub- 
lished in Psychic Notes of March 30, by Mrs. Gor- 
don, wife of Colonel W. Gordon, of Calcutta, and 
authenticated with her signature. 

Colonel Olcott, Mrs. Gordon explains in the ear- 
lier part of her statement, which for brevity's sake I 
condense, had just arrived at Calcutta on a visit to 



1 94 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



rdon and herself. A letter had come 
from Madame Blavatsky — 

" dated Bombay the 19th, telling us that something was going 
to be done, and expressing the earnest hope that she would 
not be required to assist, as she had had enough abuse about 
phenomena. Before this letter was brought by the post peon, 
Colonel Olcott had told me that he had had an intimation in 
the night from his Cliohan (teacher) that K. H. 1 had been to 
the Vega and seen Eglinton. This was at about eight o'clock 
on Thursday morning, the 23rd. A few hours later a telegram, 
dated at Bombay, 22nd day, 21 hours 9 minutes, that is, say 
9 minutes past 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, came to me from 
Madame Blavatsky, to this effect : 6 K. H. just gone to Vega.' 
This telegram came as a ' delayed ' message, and was posted to 
me from Calcutta, which accounts for its not reaching me until 
midday on Thursday. It corroborated, as will be seen, the 
message of the previous night to Colonel Olcott. We then 
felt hopeful of getting the letter by occult means from Mr. 
Eglinton. A telegram later on Thursday asked us to fix a 
time for a sitting, so we named 9 o'clock Madras time, on Fri- 
day, 24th. At this hour we three — Colonel Olcott, Colonel 
Gordon, and myself — sat in the room which had been occu- 
pied bv Mr. Eglinton. We had a good light, and sat with 
our chairs placed to form a triangle, of which the apex was to 
the north. In a few minutes Colonel Olcott saw outside the 
open window the two ' Brothers ' whose names are best known 
to us, and told us so ; he saw them pass to another window, 
the glass doors of which were closed. He saw one of them 
point his hand towards the air over my head, and I felt some- 
thing at the same moment fall straight down from above on to 
my shoulder, and saw it, fall at my feet in the direction towards 
the two gentlemen. I knew it would be the letter, but for the 
moment I was so anxious to set 1 , the 4 Brothers ' that I did not 
pick up what had fallen. Colon id Gordon and Colonel Olcott 
both saw and heard the letter fall. Colonel Olcott had turned 
his head from the window for a moment to see what the 
'Brother' was pointing at, and so noticed the letter falling 

i We had got into the habit at this time of using these initials for 
the Mahatma's name. 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



from a point about two feet from the ceiling. When he looked 
again the two 6 Brothers ' had vanished. 

" There is no verandah outside, and the window is several 
feet from the ground. 

" I now turned and picked up what had fallen on me, and 
found a letter in Mr. Eglinton's handwriting, dated on the 
Vega the 24th ; a message from Madame Blavatsky, dated at 
Bombay the 24th, written on the backs of three of her visiting 
cards ; also a larger card, such as Mr. Eglinton had a packet 
of, and used at his seances. On this latter card was the, to us, 
well-known handwriting of K. H., and a few words in the hand- 
writing of the other ' Brother,' who was with him outside our 
window, and who is Colonel Olcott's chief. All these cards 
and the letter were threaded together with a piece of blue 
sewing silk. We opened the letter carefully, by slitting up 
one side, as we saw that some one had made on the flap in 
pencil three Latin crosses, and so we kept them intact for 
identification. The letter is as follows : — 

"< S. S. Vega, Friday, 24th March, 1882. 
" 6 My dear Mrs. Gordon, — At last your hour of triumph 
has come ! After the many battles we have had at the break- 
fast-table regarding K. H.'s existence, and my stubborn scep- 
ticism as to the wonderful powers possessed by the " Brothers," 
I have been forced to a complete belief in their being living 
distinct persons, and just in proportion to my scepticism will 
be my firm unalterable opinion respecting them. I am not al- 
lowed to tell you all I know, but K. H. appeared to me in 
person two days ago, and what he told me dumfounded me. 
Perhaps Madame B. will have already communicated the fact 
of K. H.'s appearance to you. The "Illustrious " is uncertain 
whether this can be taken to Madame or not, but he will try, 
notwithstanding the many difficulties in the way. If he does 
not I shall post it when I arrive at port. I shall read this to 

Mrs. B and ask her to mark the envelope ; but whatever 

happens, you are requested by K. H. to keep this letter a pro- 
found secret until you hear from him though Madame. A 
storm of opposition is certain to be raised, and she has had so 
much to bear that it is hard she should have more.' Then 



196 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



follow some remarks about his health and the trouble which is 
taking him home, and the letter ends. 

" In her note on the three visiting cards Madame Blavatsky 
says: — < Headquarters, March 24th. These cards and contents 
to certify to my doubters that the attached letter addressed to 
Mrs. Gordon by Mr. Eglinton was just brought to me from the 
Vega, with another letter from himself to me, which I keep. 
K. H. tells me he saw Mr. Eglinton and had a talk with him, 
long and convincing enough to make him a believer in the 
"Brothers," as actual living beings, for the rest of his natural 
life. Mr. Eglinton writes to me : " The letter which I enclose 
is going to be taken to Mrs. G. through your influence. You 
will receive it wherever you are, and will forward it to her in 
ordinary course. You will learn with satisfaction of my com- 
plete conversion to a belief in the 4 Brothers,' and I have no 
doubt K. H. has already told you how he appeared to me two 
nights ago/' &c, &c. K. H. told me all. He does not, how- 
ever, want me to forward the letter in " ordinary course," as 
it would defeat the object, but commands me to write this and 
send it off without delay, so that it would reach you all at 
Howrah to-night, the 24th. I do so. . . . H. P. Blavatsky.' 

" The handwriting on these cards and signature are per- 
fectly well known to us. That on the larger card (from Mr. 
Eglinton 's packet) attached was easily recognized as coming 
from Koot Hoomi. Colonel Gordon and I know his writing 
as well as our own ; it is so distinctly different from any other 
I have ever seen, that among thousands I could select it. He 
says, * William Eglinton thought the manifestation could only 
be produced through H. P. B. as a " medium, " and that the 
power would become exhausted at Bombay. We decided 
otherwise. Let this be a proof to all that the spirit of living 
man has as much potentiality in it (and often more) as a dis- 
embodied soul. He was anxious to test her, he often doubted; 
two nights ago he had the required proof and will doubt no 
more. But he is a good young man, bright, honest, and true 
as gold when once convinced. . . . 

" ' This card was taken from his stock today. Let it be an 
additional proof of his wonderful mediumship. . . . K. H.' 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA, 



" This is written in blue ink, and across it is written 
ink a few words from the other 6 Brother' (Colonel Olc 
Cholan or chief). This interesting and wonderful phenomena 
is not published with the idea that any one who is unacquainted 
with the phenomena of spiritualism will accept it. But I 
write for the millions of spiritualists, ( and also that a record 
may be made of sucn an interesting experiment. Who knows 
but that it may pass on to a generation which will be enlight- 
ened enough to accept such wonders ? " 

A postscript adds that since the above statement 
was written, a paper had been received from Bombay, 
signed by seven witnesses who saw the letter arrive 
there from the Vega. 

As I began by saying, this phenomenon was ad- 
dressed more to spiritualists than to the outer world, 
because its great value for the experienced observer 
of phenomena turns on the utterly unmediumistic 
character of the events. Apart from the testimony 
of Mr. Eglinton's own letter to the effect that he, an 
experienced medium, was quite convinced that the 
interview he had with his occult visitant was not an 
interview with such " spirits " as he had been used 
to, we have the three-cornered character of the inci- 
dent to detach it altogether from mediumship either 
on his part or on that of Madame Blavatsky. 

Certainly there have been cases in which under 
the influence or mediumship the agencies of the ordi- 
nary spiritual seance have transported letters half 
across the globe. A conclusively authenticated case 
in which an unfinished letter was thus brought from 
London to Calcutta will have attracted the attention 
of all persons who have their understanding awak- 
ened to the importance of these matters, and who 
read what is currently published about them, quite 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



reee^dy. But every spiritualist will recognize that 
as transport of a letter from a ship at sea to Bom- 
bay, and then from Bombay to Calcutta, with a 
definite object in view, and in accordance with a 
prearranged and preannounced plan, is something 
quite outside the experience of mediumship. 

Will the effort made and the expenditure of force, 
whatever may have been required to accomplish the 
wonderful feat thus recorded, be repaid by propor- 
tionately satisfactory effects on the spiritualistic 
world ? There has been a great deal written lately 
in England about the antagonism between spiritual- 
ism and theosophy, and an impression has arisen in 
some way that the two cultes are incompatible. Now, 
the phenomena and the experiences of spiritualism 
are facts, and nothing can be incompatible with facts. 
* > But theosophy brings on the scene new interpreta- 
- - tions of those facts, it is true, and sometimes these 
prove very unwelcome to spiritualists long habit- 
uated to their own interpretation. Hence, such 
spiritualists are now and then disposed to resist the 
new teaching altogether, and hold out against a be- 
lief that there can be anywhere in existence men 
entitled to advance it. This is consequently the im- 
portant question to settle before we advance into the 
region of metaphysical subtleties. Let spiritualists 
once realize that the Brothers do exist, and what sort 
of people they are, and a great step will have been 
accomplished. Not all at once is it to be expected 
that the spiritual world will consent to revise its 
conclusions by occult doctrines. It is only by pro- 
longed intercourse with the Brothers that a convic- 
tion grows up in the mind that as regards spiritual 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



science they cannot be in error. At first, let spirit- 
ualists think them in error if they please ; but at all 
events it will be unworthy of their elevated position 
above the Boeotian herd if they deny the evidence of 
phenomenal facts ; if they hold towards occultism the 
attitude which the crass sceptic of the mere Lankes- 
ter type occupies towards spiritualism itself. So 1 
cannot but hope that the coruscation of phenomena 
connected with the origin and adventures of the let- 
ter written on board the Vega may have flashed out 
of the darkness to some good purpose, showing the 
spiritualistic world quite plainly that the great 
Brother to whom this work is dedicated is, at all 
events, a living man, with faculties and powers of 
that entirely abnormal kind which spiritualists have 
hitherto conceived to inhere merely in beings belong- 
ing to a superior scheme of existence. 

For my part, I am glad to say that I not only 
know him to be a living man by reason of all the 
circumstances detailed in this volume, but I am now 
enabled to realize his features and appearance by 
means of two portraits, which have been conceded to 
me under very remarkable conditions. It was long 
a wish of mine to possess a portrait of my revered 
friend ; and some time ago he half promised that 
some time or other he would give me one. Now, in 
asking an adept for his portrait, the object desired is 
not a photograph, but a picture produced by a certain 
occult process which I have not yet had occasion to 
describe, but with which I had long been familiar by 
hearsay. I had heard, for example, from Colonel 
Olcott, of one of the circumstances under which his 
own original convictions about the realities of occult 



200 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



power were formed many years ago in New York, 
before lie had actually entered on " the path." Ma- 
dame Blavatsky on that occasion had told him to 
bring her a piece of paper which he would be cer- 
tainly able to identify, in order that she might get a 
portrait precipitated upon it. We cannot, of course, 
by the light of ordinary knowledge form any conjec- 
ture about the details of the process employed ; but 
just as an adept can, as I have had so many proofs, 
precipitate writing in closed envelopes, and on the 
pages of uncut pamphlets, so he can precipitate color 
in such a way as to form a picture. In the case of 
which Colonel Olcott told me he took home a piece 
of note-paper from a club in New York — a piece 
bearing a club stamp — and gave this to Madame 
Blavatsky. She put it between the sheets of blotting- 
paper on her writing-table, rubbed her hand over the 
outside of the pad, and then in a few moments the 
marked paper was given back to him with a com- 
plete picture upon it representing an Indian fakir in 
a state of samadhL And the artistic execution of 
this drawing was conceived by artists to whom Colo- 
nel Olcott afterwards showed it to be so good that 
they compared it to the works of old masters whom 
they specially adored and affirmed that as an artistic 
curiosity it was unique and priceless. Now in aspir- 
ing to have a portrait of Koot Hoomi, of course I 
was wishing for a precipitated picture, and it would 
seem that just before a recent visit Madame Blavat- 
sky paid to Allahabad, something must have been 
said to her about a possibility that this wish of mine 
might be gratified. For the day she came she asked 
me to give her a piece of thick white paper and mark 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 201 



it. This she would leave in her scrap-book, and there 
was reason to hope that a certain highly advanced 
chela, or pupil, of Koot Hoomi's, not a full adept 
himself as yet, but far on the road to that condition, 
would do wh? + . was necessary to produce the portrait. 

Nothing happened that day nor that night. The 
scrap-book remained lying on a table in the drawing- 
room, and was occasionally inspected. The following 
morning it was looked into by my wife, and my sheet 
of paper was found to be still blank. Still the scrap- 
book lay in full view on the drawing-room table. At 
^ half -past eleven we went to breakfast; the dining- 
room, as is often the case in Indian bungalows, only 
being separated from the drawing-room by an arch- 
way and curtains, which were drawn aside. While 
we were at breakfast Madame Blavatsky suddenly 
showed, by the signs with which all who know her 
are fainiliar, that one of her occult friends was near. 
It was the chela to whom I have above referred. 
She got up, thinking she might be required to go to 
her room ; but the astral visitor, she said, waved her 
back, and she returned to the table. After breakfast 
we looked into the scrap-book, and on my marked 
sheet of paper, which had been seen blank by my 
wife an hour or two before, was a precipitated profile 
portrait. The face itself was left white, with only 
a few touches within the limits of the space it oc- 
cupied ; but the rest of the paper all round it was 
covered with cloudy blue shading. Slight as the 
method was by which the result was produced, the 
outline of the face was perfectly well-defined, and its 
expression as vividly rendered as would - have been 
possible with a finished picture. 



202 THE OCCULT WORLD. 



At first Madame Blavatsky was dissatisfied with 
the sketch. Knowing the original personally, she 
could appreciate its deficiencies ; but though I should 
have welcomed a more finished portrait, I was suffi- 
ciently pleased with the one I had thus received to 
be reluctant that Madame Blavatsky should try any 
experiment with it herself with the view of improv- 
ing it, for fear it would be spoilt. In the course of 
the conversation, M put himself in communica- 
tion with Madame Blavatsky, and said that he would 
do a portrait himself on another piece of paper. 
There was no question in this case of a " test phe- 
nomenon ; " so after I had procured and given to 
Madame Blavatsky a (marked) piece of Bristol 
board, it was put away in the scrap-book, and taken 
to her room, where, free from the confusing cross 

magnetisms of the drawing-room, M would be 

better able to operate. 

Now it will be understood that neither the pro- 
ducer of the sketch I had received, nor M , in 

the natural state, is an artist. Talking over the 
whole subject of these occult pictures, I ascertained 
from Madame Blavatsky that the supremely remark- 
able results have been obtained by those of the adepts 
whose occult science as regards this particular pro- 
cess has been superadded to ordinary artistic train- 
ing. But entirely without this, the adept can produce 
a result which, for all ordinary critics, looks like the 
work of an artist, by merely realizing very clearly in 
his imagination the result he wishes to produce, and 
then precipitating the coloring matter in accordance 
with that conception. 

In the course of about an hour from the time at 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA. 



which she took away the piece of Bristol board — or 
the time may have been less — we were not watching 
it, Madame Blavatsky brought it me back with an- 
other portrait, again a profile, though more elaborately 
done. Both portraits were obviously of the same 
face, and nothing, let me say at once, can exceed the 
purity and lofty tenderness of its expression. Of 
course it bears no mark of age. Koot Hoomi, by 
the mere years of his life, is only a man of what we 
call middle age ; but the adept's physically simple 
and refined existence leaves no trace of its passage ; 
and while our faces rapidly wear out after forty — 
strained, withered, and burned up by the passions to 
which all ordinary lives are more or less exposed — 
the adept age, for periods of time that I can hardly 
venture to define, remains apparently the perfection 

of early maturity. , M Madame Blavatsky's 

special guardian still, as I judge by a portrait -of him 
that I have seen, though I do not yet possess one, in 
the absolute prime of manhood, has been her occult 
guardian from the time she was a child ; and now 
she is an old lady. He never looked, she tells me, 
any different from what he looks now. 

I have now brought up to date the record of all 
external facts connected with the revelations I have 
been privileged to make. The door leading to oc- 
cult knowledge is still ajar, and it is still permissible 
for explorers from the outer world to make good 
their footing across the threshold. This condition of 
things is due to exceptional circumstances at present, 
and may not continue long. Its continuance may 
largely depend upon the extent to which the world 
at large manifests an appreciation of the opportu- 



204 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



nity now offered. Some readers who are interested, 
but slow to perceive what practical action they can 
take, may ask what they can do to show appreciation 
of the opportunity. My reply will be modelled 
on the famous injunction of Sir Robert Peel : 
" Register, register, register ! " Take the first steps 
towards making a response to the offer which ema- 
nates from the occult world — register, register, reg- 
ister ; in other words, join the Theosophical Society 

— the one and only association which at present is 
linked by any recognized bond of union with the 
Brotherhood of Adepts in Thibet. There is a Theo- 
sophical Society in London, as there are other 
branches in Paris and America, as well as in India. 
If there is as yet but little for these branches to do, 
that fact does not vitiate their importance. After a 
voter has registered, there is not much for him to do 
for the moment. The mere growth of branches of 
the Theosophical Society, as associations of people 
who realize the sublimity of adeptship, and have 
been able to feel that the story told in this little 
book, and more fully, if more obscurely, in many 
greater volumes of occult learning, is absolutely true 

— true, not as shadowy religious " truths " or ortho- 
dox speculations are held to be true by their vota- 
ries, but true as the " London Post-Office Direc- 
tory " is true ; as the Parliamentary reports people 
read in the morning are true ; the mere enrolment 
of such people in a society under conditions which 
may enable them sometimes to meet and talk the sit- 
uation over if they do no more, may actually effect 
a material result as regards the extent to which the 
authorities of the occult world will permit the fur- 



LATER OCCULT PHENOMENA, 



ther revelation of the sublime knowledge they pos- 
sess. Kemember, that knowledge is real knowledge 
of other worlds and other states of existence — not 
vague conjecture about hell and heaven and purga- 
tory, but precise knowledge of other worlds going on 
at this moment, the condition and nature of which 
the adepts can cognize, as we can the condition and 
nature of a strange town we may visit. These worlds 
are linked with our own, and our lives with the lives 
they support ; and will the further acquaintance with 
the few men on earth who are in a position to tell us 
more about them be superciliously rejected by the 
advance guard of the civilized world, the educated 
classes of England ? Surely no inconsiderable group 
will be sufficiently spiritualized to comprehend the 
value of the present opportunity, and sufficiently 
practical to follow the advice already quoted, and — 
register, register, register. 



APPENDIX. 



A. (See Page 8.) 

Later acquaintance with the subject has done much to 
show me that the reserve hitherto maintained by the masters 
of occult science was inevitable. It is useless to offer any 
man information which his faculties are not sufficiently ex- 
panded to receive. Only a few hundred years ago the physi- 
cal science that has been absorbed by the last two or three 
generations with avidity would have.been unwelcome and de- 
spised. Till quite recently the serious contemplation of psy- 
chic phenomena would have been resented as a relapse into 
superstition. No man can investigate caules till he is willing 
to. observe facts, and it was only the other day that a disposi- 
tion to observe facts lying outside the domain of physical cau- 
sation would have alienated any prematurely developed enthu- 
siast from the sympathies of all his contemporaries. The light 
of mere worldly wisdom may thus vindicate the reticence of the 
few and secluded custodians of the higher knowledge, but 
with far greater precision is their policy vindicated when with 
their own help we come at last to comprehend the scientific 
law of human intellectual development. The progress of the 
world is not rolling on under the direction of blind chance. 
Propelled though it is by the collective impulses of individual N 
energy, it advances in a defined path, and the knowledge, the 
discoveries, the spiritual teaching, which breaks upon the world 
at each stage of its advancement, is precisely proportioned 
to the receptivity of mankind at that period of its evolution. 
The revelation of occult truth going on in the world just now 
in many ways and under various aspects — though as I most 
emphatically believe, under none more unequivocally or satis- 
factorily than in the case of the direct teaching of occult sci- 
ence I am instrumental in bringing to public notice — is the 
legitimate inheritance of this generation, and the good it may 
do in the world now could not have been done only a few de- 
cades ago. It is useless to try to take a photographic picture 
upon a non-sensitized plate; it is useless to present the subtle 
conceptions of spiritual science to minds on which no psychic 
collodion has previously been deposited. The Esoteric study 



APPENDIX. 



207 



in which some of us connected with the Theosophical Society- 
have been privileged, during the last two or three years, to en- 
gage, has so effectually dispelled the discontent we first felt at 
the jealousy that had withheld this teaching from the world so 
long, that we recognize the message we are now commissioned 
to convey as addressed so far only to the most highly ad- 
vanced and intuitive minds of our time. We are but beginning 
to put forward a doctrine which will only be appreciated in its 
full significance later on.— 7- June 7, 1884. 

B. (See Page 15.) 

It is interesting to observe that, in accordance with predic- 
tions made to me when I began to write on these subjects, the 
dawn of psychic truth has begun to brighten our sky from 
several directions at once. TheT psychological telegraphy here 
referred to was quite unheard of in the world at large in 1880. 
But for the last year or two the Psychic Research Society in 
London has been specially ehgageul pn^'a long series of experi- 
ments in what it calls " thought transference," the phenomena 
of which contain the germs of tlie adepts' psychic telegraph. 
If any one still doubts that thought impressions really can be 
conveyed from one" mine! to another, without the aid of speech 
or any sign or communication whatever having to do with the 
physical senses, he is unacquainted with the result of scientific 
inquiry in that direction. The transactions of the society re- 
ferred to put . the broad fact just noted beyond the reach of 
incredulity that can any longer be regarded as intelligent. 

C. (See Page 95.) 

It is too late in the day now, when several editions of this 
book have already passed through the press,' to affect any re- 
serve about this name. But in truth I greatly regret now 
that I ever permitted it to become public property. All over 
India the disciples of the Brothers regard their Masters' names 
with the tenderest possible respect. The free and easy criticism 
to which this book has naturally been subject since its first ap- 
pearance has often been associated with more or less disre- - 
spectful references to my revered correspondent, and this has 
given rise to great pain on the part of the regular chelas in India, 
the pupils of occult science ; indeed, it is no longer necessary^ 
to go to India in search of persons whose sensibilities, are liable 
to be. disturbed seriously in the same way. In London a large 
and earnestly studious branch of the Theosophical Society has 
been formed, and long contact with the grand conceptions of 
Esoteric philosophy has developed on the part of its members 
a sentiment of reverence for the Mahatmas only second in in- 
tensity to that of the regular oriental initiates. It would spare 
all such persons a great deal of indignant distress, if the name 



2 8 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



I was unfortunately led to print in this work at full length had 
never been disclosed. To most Western readers the matter may- 
seem very unimportant, but trouble and annoyance which I 
greatly deplore have ensued from the mistake thus committed. 
As a matter of fact, I may here observe that the original manu- 
script of my book was written from end to end without the 
use of the name, instead of which I had placed a mere initial, 

" H but a letter I received from India shortly before 

the publication of the book authorized the use of the name, 
and I felt at that time that it was absurd to be plus royaliste 
que le roi. So the step came to be taken which cannot now be 
recalled. The name of the Mahatma here made use of, I 
may explain, in conclusion of this digression. 

D. (See p. 149.) 

The necessity of reprinting this work for a fourth edition 
gives me an opportunity of noticing some discussion that has 
taken place in the spiritualistic press on the subject of a letter 
addressed to Light, of September 1st, 1883, by Mr. Henry 
Kiddle, an American spiritualist. The letter was as follows : — 

To the Editor of "Light." 

Sin, — In a communication that appeared in your issue of July 21st, 
" G. W., M. D.," reviewing "Esoteric Buddhism," says: "Regarding 
this Koot Hoomi, it is a very remarkable and unsatisfactory fact that 
Mr. jSinnett, although in correspondence with him for years, has yet 
never been permitted to see him." I agree with your correspondent en- 
tirely ; and this is not the only fact that is unsatisfactory to me. On 
reading Mr. Sinnett's "Occult World," more than a year ago, I was very 
greatly surprised to find in one of the letters presented by Mr. Sinnett 
as having been transmitted to him by Koot Hoomi, in the mysterious 
manner described, a passage taken almost verbatim from an address on 
Spiritualism by me at Lake Pleasant, in August, 1880, and published 
the same month by the Banner of Light. As Mr, Sinnett's book did 
not appear till a considerable time afterwards (about a year, I think), it 
is certain that I did not quote, consciously or unconsciously, from its 
pages. How, then, did it get into Koot Hoomi's mysterious letter ? 

I sent to Mr. Sinnett a letter through his publishers, enclosing the 
printed pages of my address, with the part used by Koot Hoomi marked 
upon it, and asked' for an explanation, for I wondered that so great a 
sage as Koot Hoomi should need to borrow anything from so humble a 
student of spiritual things as myself. As yet I have received no reply; 
and the query has been suggested to my mind — Is Koot Hoomi a 
myth ? or, if not, is he so great an adept as to have impressed my mind 
with his thoughts and words while I was preparing my address ? If the 
latter were the case he could not consistently exclaim: "Pereant qui 
ante nos nostra dixerunt." 

Perhaps Mr. Sinnett may think it scarcely worth while to solve this 
little problem ; but the fact that the existence of the brotherhood has 
not yet been proved may induce some to raise the question suggested 
by " G. W., M. D." Is"there any such secret order? On this question, 
which is not intended to imply anything offensive to Mr. Sinnett, that 
other still more important question may depend. Is Mr. Sinnett's re- 



APPENDIX. 



209 



cently published book an exponent of Esoteric Buddhism ? It is, doubt- 
less, a work of great ability, and its statements are worthy of deep 
thought ; but the main question is, are they true, or how can they be 
veritied? As this cannot be accomplished except by the exercise of 
abnormal or transcendental faculties, they must be accepted, if at all, 
upon the ipse dixit of the accomplished adept, who has been so kind as 
to sacrifice his esoteric character or vow, and make Mr. Sinnett his 
channel of communication with the outer world, thus rendering his 
sacred knowledge exoteric. Hence, if this publication, with its wonder- 
ful doctrine of "Shells," overturning the consolatory conclusions of 
Spiritualists, is to be accepted, the authority must be established, and 
the existence of the adept or adepts — indeed, the facts of adeptship — 
must be proved. The first step in affording this proof has hardly yet, I 
think, been taken. I trust this book will be very carefully analyzed, 
and the nature of its inculcations exposed, whether they are Esoteric 
Buddhism or not. 

The following are the passages referred to, printed side by side for 
the sake of ready reference. 



Extract from Mr. Kiddle's dis- 
course, entitled " The Present Out- 
look of Spiritualism," delivered at 
Lake Pleasant Camp Meeting on 
Sunday, August 15, 1880. 

" My friends, ideas rule the 
world ; and as men's minds receive 
new ideas, laying aside the old and 
effete, the world advances. Society 
rests upon them; mighty revolu- 
tions spring from them; institutions 
crumble before their onward march. 
It is just as impossible to resist their 
influx, when the time comes, as to 
stay the progress of the tide. 



And the agency called Spiritual- 
ism is bringing a new set of ideas 
into the world — ideas on the most 
momentous subjects, touching man's 
true position in the universe ; his 
origin and destiny; the relation of 
the mortal to the immortal; of the 
temporary to the Eternal; of the 
finite to the Infinite ; of man's death- 
less soul to the material universe in 
which it now dwells — ideas larger, 
more general, more comprehensive, 
recognizing more fully the universal 
reign of law as the expression of the 
Divine will, unchanging and un- 



Extract from Root HoornVs let- 
ter to Mr. Sinnett, in the * 4 Occult 
World,]\ 3d Edition K p. 102. The 
first edition was published in June, 
1881. 

Ideas rule the world; and as 
men's minds receive new ideas, 
laying aside the old and effete, the 
world will advance, mighty revo- 
lutions will spring from them, 
creeds and even powers will crumble 
before their onward march, crushed 
by their irresistible force. It will 
be just as impossible to resist their 
influence when the time comes as to 
stay the progress of the tide. But 
all this will come gradually on, and 
before it comes we have a duty set 
before us : that jot sweeping away 
as much as possible the dross left to 
us by our pious forefathers. New 
ideas have to be planted on clean 
places, for these ideas touch upon 
the most momentous subjects. It is 
not physical phenomena, but these 
universal ideas that we study, as to 
comprehend the former, we have 
first to understand the latter. _ They 
toi'ch man's true position in the 
universe in relation to his previous 
and future births, his origin and 
ultimate destiny; the relation of the 
mortal to the immortal, of the tem- 
porary to the Eternal, of the finite 
to the' Infinite; ideas larger, grander, 
more comprehensive, recognizing 
the eternal reign of immutable law, 
unchanging and unchangeable, in 
regard to which there is only an 



210 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



changeable, in regard to which there Eternal Now: while to unini- 

is only an Eternal Now, while to tiated mortals time is past or future, 

mortals time is past or future, as as related to their finite existence 

related to their finite existence on on this material speck of dirt, &c, 

this material plane; &c, &c, &c. &c, &c. 

New York, August 11th, 1883. Henry Kiddle. 

The appearance of this letter puzzled, without very much 
disturbing, the equanimity of Theosophical students. If it had 
been published immediately after the first publication of the 
" Occult World," its effect might have been more serious, but 
in the interim the Brothers had by degrees communicated to 
the public through my agency such a considerable block of 
philosophical teaching, then already embodied in my second 
book, u Esoteric Buddhism," and scattered through two or 
three volumes of the TheosopJiist, that appreciative readers had 
passed beyond the stage of development in which it might have 
been possible for them to suppose that the principal author of 
this teaching could at any time have been under any intel- 
lectual temptation to borrow thoughts from a spiritualistic 
lecture. Various hypotheses were framed to account for the 
mysterious identity between the two passages cited, and peo- 
ple to whom the Theosophic teachings were unacceptable, as 
overthrowing conceptions to which they were attached, were 
greatly enchanted to find my revered instructor convicted, as 
they thought, of a commonplace plagiarism. A couple of 
months necessarily elapsed before an answer could be obtained 
from India on the subject, and meanwhile the " Kiddle inci- 
dent," as it came to be called, was joyfully treated by various 
correspondents writing in the columns of Light, as having dealt 
a fatal blow at the authority of the Indian Mahatmas as expo- 
nents of esoteric truth. 

In due course I received a long and instructive explanation 
of the mystery from Mahatma Koothoomi himself; but this 
letter reached me under the seal of the most absolute con- 
fidence. Rigidly adhering to the policy which had all along 
restrained within narrow limits the communication of their 
teaching to the world at large, the Brothers remained as anx- 
ious as ever to leave everybody full intellectual liberty to dis- 
believe in them, and reject their revelation if his spiritual 
intuitions were not of a kind to be readily kindled. In the 
same way that from the first they had refused me the over- 
whelming and irresistible proofs of their power, which I had 
sought for in the beginning as weapons with which I might 
successfully combat incredulity, they now shrank from inter- 
fering with the conclusions of any readers who might be found 
capable, after the rich assurances of the later teaching, of 
distrusting the Mahatmas on the strength of a suspicion which 
was ill founded in reality, plausible though it might seem. 
Debarred myself, however, from making any public use of the 



APPENDIX. 



211 



Mahatma's letter, some of the residents and visitors at the 
Headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, 
came into possession of the true facts of the case, and some 
communications appeared in the society's magazine which 
afforded every one honestly desirous of comprehending the 
truth of the matter, all necessary information. In the Decem- 
ber number of the Theosophist, Mr. Subba Row put forward 
a very cautiously worded article, hinting merely at the actual 
explanation of the identity of the passages cited by Mr. Kid- 
dle, and concerned chiefly with an elaborate analysis of the 
" plagiarized " sentences, the object of which was to show that 
in truth we might have divined for ourselves, if we had been 
sharp enough in the beginning, that some mistake had been 
made, and that the Mahatma could not have intended to write 
the sentences just as they stood. The hint conveyed by Mr. 
Subba Row was as follows : — 

" Therefore from a careful perusal of the passage and its contents, any 
unbiassed reader will come to the conclusion that somebody must have 
greatly blundered over the said passage, and will not be surprised to 
hear that it was unconsciously > altered through the carelessness and 
ignorance of the chela by whose instrumentality it was 'precipitated.' 
Such alterations, omissions, and mistakes sometimes occur in the process 
of precipitation; and I now assert I know it for certain, from an inspec- 
tion of the original precipitation proof, that such was the case with re- 
gard to the passage under discussion." 

The same TJieosophist in which this article appeared con- 
tained a letter from General Morgan in reply to various spir- 
itualistic attacks on the Theosophical position, and in the 
course of his remarks he referred to the " Kiddle incident " 
as follows : — 

"Happily we have been permitted, many of us, to look behind the veil 
of the parallel passage mystery, and the whole affair is very satisfacto- 
rily explained to us; but all that we are permitted to, say is that many 
a passage was entirety omitted from the letter received by Mr. Sinnett, 
its precipitation from the original dictation to the chela. Would our 
great Master but permit us his humble followers to photograph and pub- 
lish in the Theosophist the scraps shown to us, scraps in which whole 
sentences parenthetical and quotation marks are defaced and obliterated, 
and consequently omitted in the chela's clumsy transcription — the pub- 
lic would be treated to a rare sight — something entirely unknown to 
modern science — namely, an akasic impression as good as a photo- 
graph of mentally expressed' thoughts dictated from a' distance." 

^ A month or two after the appearance of these fragmentary 
hints, I received a note from the Mahatma relieving "me of all 
restrictions previously imposed on the full letter of explana- 
tion he had previously sent me. The subject, by that time, 
however, seemed to have lost its interest for all persons in 
England whose opinions I valued. Within the London Theo- 
sophical Society, now already a large and growing body, the 
Kiddle incident was looked on as "little more than a joke, 
and the notion that the Mahatma, who had inspired the teach- 



212 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



ings of " Esoteric Buddhism," could have " plagiarized " from 
a spiritualistic lecture, as so absurd on the face of things that 
no appearances seeming to endorse that conception could have 
any importance. I did not feel disposed, therefore, to treat 
the suspicions some critics had entertained with the respect 
that would have been involved in any appeal from me to the 
public to listen to what would have been represented as a de- 
fence — and a strangely postponed defence — of the Mahatma. 

Now, however, that this new edition of the " Occult World " 
is required, there is an obvious propriety in the course I now 
take. The new letter from the Mahatma constitutes in itself 
a correction of the letter from which I quote on pages 101-102, 
and apart from the interest of the explanation it furnishes in 
regard to the precipitation process, the thoughts it conveys are 
in themselves valuable and suggestive. 

" The letter in question," writes the Mahatma, referring to 
the communication I originally received, " was framed by me 
while on a journey and on horseback. It was dictated mentally 
in the direction of and precipitated by a young chela not yet 
expert at this branch of psychic chemistry, and who had to 
transcribe it from the hardly visible imprint. Half of it, 
therefore, was omitted, and the other half more or less distorted 
by the 4 artist. ' When asked by him at the time whether I 
would look over and correct it, 1 answered — imprudently, I 
confess — 'Anyhow will do, my boy; it is of no great im- 
portance if you skip a few words.' I was physically very tired 
by a ride of forty-eight hours consecutively, and (physically 
again) half asleep. Besides this, I had very important busi- 
ness to attend to psychically, and therefore little remained of 
me to devote to that letter. When I awoke I found it had al- 
ready been sent on, and as I was not then anticipating its pub- 
lication, I never gave it from that time a thought. Now I had 
never evoked spiritual Mr. Kiddle's physiognomy, never had 
heard of his existence, was not aware of his name. Having, 
owing to our correspondence, and your Simla surroundings 
and friends, felt interested in the intellectual progress of the 
Phenomenalists, I had directed my attention, some two months 
previous, to the great annual camping movement of the Amer- 
ican Spiritualists in various directions, among others to Lake 
or Mount Pleasant. Some of the curious ideas and sentences 
representing the general hopes and aspirations of the American 
Spiritualists remained impressed on my memory, and I re- 
membered only these ideas and detached sentences quite 
apart from the personalities of those who harbored or pro- 
nounced them. Hence my entire ignorance of the lecturer 
whom I have innocently defrauded, as it would appear, and 
who raises the hue and cry. Yet had I dictated my letter in 
the form it now appears in print, it would certainly look sus- 
picious, and however far from what is generally called plagia- 



APPENDIX. 



213 



rism, yet in the absence of any inverted commas it would lay a 
foundation for censure. But I did nothing of the kind, as the 
original impression now before me clearly shows. And before 
I proceed any further I must give you some explanation o£ 
this mode of precipitation. 

The recent experiments of the Psychic Research Society will 
help you greatly to comprehend the rationale of this mental 
telegraphy. You have observed in the journal of that body 
how thought transference is cumulatively effected. The image 
of the geometrical or other figure which the active brain has 
had impressed upon it is gradually imprinted upon the recipient 
brain of the passive subject, as the series of reproductions illus- 
trated in the cuts show. Two factors are needed to produce a 
perfect and instantaneous mental telegraphy — close concen- 
tration in the operator and complete receptive passivity in the 
reader subject. Given a disturbance of either condition, and 
the result is proportionately imperfect. The reader does not 
see the image as in the telegrapher's brain, but as arising in 
his own. When the latter's thought wanders, the psychic cur- 
rent becomes broken, the communication disjointed .and inco- 
herent. In a case such as mine the chela had, as it were, to 
pick up what he could from the current I was sending him, 
and, as above remarked, patch the broken bits together as best 
he might. Do not you see the same thing in ordinary mes- 
merism — the maya impressed upon the subject's imagina- 
tion by the operator becoming now stronger, now feebler, as the 
latter keeps the intended illusive image more or less stead- 
ily before his own fancy. And how often the clairvoyants re- 
proach the magnetizer for taking their thoughts off the subject 
under consideration. And the mesmeric healer will always 
bear you witness that if he permits himself to think of any- 
thing but the vital current he is pouring into his patient, he is 
at once compelled to either establish the current afresh or stop 
the treatment. So I, in this instance, having at the moment 
more vividly in my mind the psychic diagnosis of current spir- 
itualistic thought, of which the Lake Pleasant speech was one 
marked symptom, unwittingly transferred that reminiscence 
more vividly than my own remarks upon it and deductions 
therefrom. So to say, the 1 despoiled victim's' — Mr. Kid- 
dle's — utterances came out as a highlight, and were more 
sharply photographed (first, in the chela's brain, and thence 
on the paper before him, a double process, and one far more 
difficult than thought reading simply), while the rest, my re- 
marks thereupon and arguments — as I now find, are hardly 
visible and quite blurred on the original scraps before me. Put 
into a mesmeric subject's hand a sheet of bank paper, tell him 
it contains a certain chapter of some book that you have read, 
concentrate your thoughts upon the words, and see how — pro- 
vided that he has himself not read the chapter, but only takes 



214 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



it from your memory, his reading will reflect your own more or 
less vivid successive recollections of your author's language. 
The same as to the precipitation by the chela of the transferred 
thought upon (or rather into) paper. If the mental picture 
received be feeble, his visible reproduction of it must corre- 
spond. And the more so in proportion to the closeness of at- 
tention he gives. He might — were he but merely a person of 
the true mediumistic temperament — be employed by his 
" Master " as a sort of psychic printing machine (producing 
lithographed or psychographed impressions of what the opera- 
tor had in mind; his nerve system the machine, his nerve aura 
the printing fluid, the colors drawn from that exhaustless store- 
house of pigments (as of everything else) the akasa. But the 
medium and the chela are diametrically dissimilar, and the lat- 
ter acts consciously, except under exceptional circumstances, 
during development not necessary to dwell upon here. 

" Well, as soon as I heard of the change, the commotion 
among my defenders having reached me across the eternal 
snows, I ordered an investigation into the original scraps of 
the impression. At the first glance 1 saw that it was I the 
only and most guilty party, the poor boy having done but that 
which he was told. Having now restored the characters and 
the lines omitted and blurred beyond hope of recognition by 
any one but their original evolver, to their primitive color and 
places, I now find my letter reading quite differently, as you 
will observe. Turning to the 'Occult World,' the copy sent 
by you, to the page cited, I was struck, upon carefully read- 
ing it, by the great discrepancy between the sentences, a gap, 
so to say, of ideas between part 1 and part 2, the plagiarized 
portion so called. There seems no connection at all between 
the two; for what has indeed the determination of our chiefs 
(to prove to a skeptical world that physical phenomena are as 
reducible to law as anything else) to do with Plato's ideas 
which 'rule the world,' or 'Practical Brotherhood of Human- 
ity.' I fear that it is your personal friendship alone for the 
writer that has blinded you to the discrepancy and discon- 
nection of ideas in this abortive precipitation even until now. 
Otherwise you could not have failed to perceive that some- 
thing was wrong on that page, that there was a glaring defect 
in the connection. Moreover, I have to plead guilty to an- 
other sin : I have never so much as looked at my letters in 
print, until the day of the forced investigation. I had read 
only your own original matter, feeling it a loss of time to go 
over my hurried bits and scraps of thought. But now I have 
to ask you to read the passages as they were originally dic- 
tated by me, and make the comparison with the ' Occult 
World ' before you ... I inclose the copy verbatim from the 
restored fragments, underlining in red the omitted sentences 
for easier comparison. 



APPENDIX. 



u • . . Phenomenal elements previously unthought of . . • 
will disclose at last the secrets of their mysterious workings. 
Plato was right to readmit every element of speculation which 
Socrates had discarded. The problems of universal being are 
not unattainable, or worthless if attained. But the latter can be 
solved only by mastering those elements that are now looming on 
the horizons of the profane. Even the Spiritualists, with their 
mistaken, grotesquely perverted views and notions, are hazily 
realizing the new situation. They prophesy — and their prophe- 
cies are not always without a point of truth in them — of intui- 
tional prevision, so to say. Hear some of them reasserting the 
old, old axiom that 4 ideas rule the world,' and as men's minds 
receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world 
will advance, mighty revolutions will spring from them; institu- 
tions, aye, and even creeds and powers, they may add, will 
crumble before their onward march, crushed by their own in- 
herent force, not the irresistible force of the 6 new ideas ' offered 
by the Spiritualists. Yes, they are both right and wrong. It will 
,be 4 just as impossible to resist their influence when the time 
comes as to stay the progress of the tide — to be sure. But 
what the Spiritualists fail to perceive, I see, and their spirits to 
explain (the latter knowing no more than what they can find in 
the brains of the former) is that all this will come gradually on, 
and that before it comes they, as well us our selves y have all a 
duty to perform, a task set before us — that of sweeping away 
as much as possible the dross left to us by our pious fore- 
fathers. New ideas have to be planted on clean places, for 
these ideas touch upon the most momentous subjects. It is 
not physical phenomena, or the agency called Spiritualism, but 
these universal ideas that we have precisely to study; the nou- 
menon, not the phenomenon : for to comprehend the latter we 
have first to understand the former. They do touch man's 
true position in the universe, to be sure, but only in relation to 
his future not previous births. It is not physical phenomena, 
however wonderful, that can ever explain to man his origin, let 
alone his ultimate destiny, or as one of them expresses it, the 
relation of the mortal to the immortal, of the temporary to the 
eternal, of the finite to the infinite, &c. They talk very glibly 
of what they regard as new ideas, c larger, more general, grander, 
more comprehensive,' and at the same time they recognize in- 
stead of the eternal reign of immutable law, the universal reign 
of law as the> expression of a Divine will. Forgetful of their 
earlier beliefs, and that ' it repented the Lord that he had made 
man,' these would-be philosophers and reformers would impress 
upon their hearers that the expression of the said Divine will 6 is 
unchanging and unchangeable, in regard to which there is only 
an Eternal Now, while to mortals [uninitiated?] time is past 
or future as related to -their finite existence on this material 
plane, y — of which they know as little as of their spiritual spheres — 



2l6 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



a speck of dirt they have made the- latter ; like our own earth, a 
future life that the true philosopher would rather avoid than 
court. But I dream with my eyes open. . . . At all events, this is 
not any privileged teaching of their own. Most of these ideas are 
taken piecemeal from Plato and the Alexandrian philosophers. 
It is what we all study, and what many have solved, etc., etc. 

" This is the true copy of the original document as now re- 
stored — the 6 Rosetta stone ' of the Kiddle incident. And 
now, if you have understood my explanations about the pro- 
cess, as given in a few words further back, you need not ask 
me how it came to pass that, though somewhat disconnected, 
the sentences transcribed by the chela are mostly- those that 
are now considered as plagiarized, while the missing links are 
precisely those phrases that would have shown the passages 
were simply reminiscences, if not quotations — the key-note 
around which came grouping my own reflections on that morn- 
ing. For the first time in my life I had paid a serious atten- 
tion to the utterances of the poetical 6 media ' of the so-called 
' inspirational ' oratory of the English- American lecturers, its 
quality and limitations. I was struck with all this brilliant 
but empty verbiage, and recognized for the first time fully its 
pernicious intellectual tendency. It was their gross and un- 
savory materialism, hiding clumsily under its shadowy spiritual 
vail, that attracted my thoughts at the time. While dictating 
the sentences quoted — a small portion of the many I had 
been pondering over for some days — it was those ideas that 
were thrown out en relief the most, leaving out my own paren- 
thetical remarks to disappear in the precipitation.' 9 

I need only add a few words of apology to Mr. Kiddle for 
my accidental neglect of his original communication on this 
subject addressed to me in India. When his letter above 
quoted appeared in Light, I had no recollection whatever of 
having received any letter from him while in India ; but 
within the last few months going over, in London, and 
sorting papers brought back en masse from India, I have turned 
up the forgotten note. While in India, and the editor of a 
daily newspaper, my correspondence was such that letters re- 
quiring no immediate action on my part would inevitably 
sometimes be put aside after a hasty glance, and would un- 
fortunately sometimes escape attention afterwards. And after 
the appearance of this book, I received letters of inquiry of 
various kinds from all parts of the world, which I was too 
often prevented by other calls on my time from answering as I 
should have wished. With the tone and spirit in which Mr. 
Kiddle made his very natural inquiry I have no fault to find 
whatever, and if his subsequent letter to Light betrayed some 
disposition on his part to construct unfavorable hypotheses 
on the basis of the parallel passages, even this second letter 
would hardly in itself have justified some of the indignant pro- 



APPENDIX. 



217 



tests ultimately published on the other side. The spiritualist: 
pur sang, eager to seize on an incident which seemed to cas 
discredit on the Theosophical teachings by which their view,' 
had been so seriously compromised, were responsible for hand 
ling the 4 6 Kiddle incident ' ' in such a way as to provoke th< 
vehement rejoinders of some Theosophical correspondents 
writing in the columns of Light and elsewhere. In considera- 
tion, however, of the explanations to which it has eventually 
given rise, and of the further insight thus afforded us into some 
interesting details connected with the methods under which 
an adept's correspondence may sometimes be conducted, the 
whole incident need not altogether be regretted. 

The relations with the 44 Occult World ' ' that I have been 
fortunate enough to establish have so greatly expanded during 
the few years that have elapsed since this volume was written 
that I must refer my readers to my second book, "Esoteric 
Buddhism," for an account of their later development. It may 
be worth while, however, as directly connected with the main 
purpose of this earlier narrative, to insert here some papers I 
wrote quite recently for submission to Theosophical audiences 
in London on the main question discussed in this volume, the 
existence and sources of knowledge at the command of the 
adepts. The evidence on this subject has long since overshad- 
owed in its amplitude and completeness the preliminary tes- 
timony afforded by my own experiences in India. I summed 
up some of this later evidence on one of the occasions just re- 
ferred to, as follows : — 

All persons who become interested in any of the teachings which have 
found their way out into the world through the intermediation of the 
Theosophical Society very soon turn to the sanctions on which those 
teachings rest. . 

Now the orthodox occult reply hitherto given to inquirers as to the 
authenticity of any small statements in occult science that have hitherto 
been put forth, has simply been this : — " Ascertain for yourself." That 
is to say, lead the pure spiritual life, cultivate the inner faculties, and 
by degrees these will be awakened and developed to the extent of en- 
abling you to probe Nature for yourself. But that advice is not of a 
kind which great numbers of people have ever been ready to take, and 
hence knowledge concerning the truths of occult science has remained 
in the hands of a few. 

A new departure has now been taken. Certain proficients in occult 
science have broken through the old restrictions of their order, and have 
suddenly let out a flood of statements into the world, together with some 
information concerning the attributes and faculties they have themselves 
acquired, and by means of which they have learned what they now tell 
us. 

It is very widely recognized that the teaching is interesting and cohe- 
rent and even supported by analogies, but every new inquirer in turn 
must ask what assurance we can have that the persons from whom this 
teaching emanates are in a position to ascertain so much. Most people, 
I think, would be ready to admit that persons invested, as the Brothers 
of Theosophy are said to be invested, with abnormal and extraordinaiy 
powers over Nature — even in the departments of Nature with which 



218 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



we are familiar — may very probably have faculties which enable them 
to obtain a deep insight into many of the generally hidden truths of Na- 
ture. But then comes the primary question, "What assurance can you 
give us that there really are behind the few people who stand forward 
as the visible rep esentatives of the Theosophical Society, any such per- 
sons as the Adept Brothers at all ? " This is an old question which is al- 
ways recurring, and which must go on recurring as long as new comers 
continue to approach the threshold of the Theosophical Society. For 
many of us it has long been settled; for some new inquirers the ex- 
istence of psychological Adepts seems so probable that the assurances 
of the leading representatives of the Society in India are readily accepted; 
but for others again, the existence of the Brothers must first be estab- 
lished by altogether plain and unequivocal evidence before it will seem 
worth while to pay attention to the report some of us may make as to 
the specific doctrine they teach. 

I propose, therefore, to go over the evidence on this main question, 
which certainly underlies any with which the Theosophical Society, so 
far as it is concerned with the Indian teachings, can be engaged. Of 
course, I am not going to trouble you with any repetition of particular 
incidents already described in published writings. What I propose to 
do is briefly to review the whole case as it now stands, very greatly 
enlarged and strengthened as it has been during the last two years. 
The evidence, to begin with, divides itself into two kinds. First, we 
have the general body of current belief, which in India goes to show 
that such persons as Mahatmas or Adepts are somewhere in existence; 
secondly, the specific evidence which shows that the leaders of the 
Theosophical Society are in relation with, and in the confidence of, such 
Adepts. 

As to the general body of belief, it would hardly be too much to say 
that the whole mass of the sacred literature of India rests on belief in the 
existence of Adepts; and a very widely-spread belief, covering great 
areas of space and time, can rarely be regarded as evolved from nothing 
— as having had no basis of fact. But passing over the Mahabharata 
and the Puranas and all they tell us concerning "Rishis " or Adepts of 
ancient date, I may call your attention to a paper in the Theosophist of 
May, 1882, on some relatively modern popular Indian books, recounting 
the lives of various " Sadhus," another word for saint, yogee, or Adept, 
who have lived within the last thousand years. In this article a list is 
given of over seventy such persons, whose memory is enshrined in a 
number of Marathi books, Avhere the miracles they are said to have 
wrought are recorded. The historical value of their narratives may, of 
course, be disputed. I mention them merely as illustrations of the fact 
that belief in the persons having the powers now ascribed to the Broth- 
ers is no new thing in India. And next we have the testimony of many 
modern writers concerning the very remarkable occult feats of Indian 
yogees and fakirs. Such people, of course, are immeasurably below the 
psychological rank of those whom we speak of as Brothers, but the fac- 
ulties they possess, sometimes, will be enough to convince any one who 
studies the evidence concerning them that living men can acquire powers 
and faculties commonly regarded as superhuman. 

In Jaccolliot's books about his experiences in Benares and elsewhere, 
this subject is fully dealt with, and some facts connected with it have 
even forced their way into Anglo-Indian official records. The Report of 
an English Resident at the court of Runjeet Singh describes how he was 
present at the burial of a yogee who was shut up in a vault, by his own 
consent, for a considerable period — six weeks, I think, but I have not 
got the report at hand just now to quote in detail — and emerged alive, 
at the end of that time, which he had spent in Samadhi or trance. Such 
a man would, of course be an "Adept" of a very inferior type, but 
the record of his achievements has the advantage of being very well 



APPENDIX. 



21 



authenticated as far as it goes. Again, up to within a few years ago, | 
very highly spiritualized ascetic and gifted seer was living at Agra 
where he taught a group of disciples, and by their own statement ha 
frequently reappeared amongst them since his death. This event itseK 
was an effort of will accomplished at an appointed time. I have heard a 
good deal about him from one of his principal followers, a cultivated and 
highly respected native Government official, now living at Allahabad. 
His existence, and the fact that he possessed great psychological gifts, 
are quite beyond question. 

Thus, in India, the fact that there are such people in the world as 
Adepts is hard'v regarded as open to dispute. Most of those, of course, 
concerning whom one can obtain definite information, turn out on in- 
quiry to be yogees of the inferior type, men who have trained their inner 
faculties to the extent of possessing various abnormal powers, and even 
insight into spiritual truths. But none the less do all inquiries after 
Adepts superior to them ia attainments provoke the reply that certainly 
there are such, though they live in complete seclusion. The general 
vague, indefinite belief, in fact, paves the way to the inquiry with which 
we are more immediately concerned — whether the leaders of the The- 
osophical Society are really in relation with some of the higher Adepts 
who do not habitually live amongst the community at large, nor make 
known the fact of their adeptship to any but their own regularly ac- 
cepted pupils. 

Now the evidence on this point divides itself as follows : — 
First, We have the primary evidence of witnesses who have personally 
seen certain of these Adepts, both in the flesh and out of the flesh, who 
have seen their powers exercised, and who have obtained certain knowl- 
edge as to their existence and attributes. 

Secondly, The evidence of those who have seen them in the astral 
form, identifying them in various ways with the living men others have 
seen. 

Thirdly, The testimony of those who have acquired circumstantial evi- 
dence as to their existence. 

Foremost among the witnesses of the first group stand Madame 
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott themselves. For those who see reason to 
trust Madame Blavatsky, her testimony is, of course, ample and precise, 
and altogether satisfactory. She has lived among the Adepts for many 
years. She has been in almost daily communication with them ever 
since. She has returned to them, and they have visited her in their 
natural bodies on several occasions since she emerged from Thibet after 
her own initiation. There is no intermediate alternative between the 
conclusion that her statements concerning the Brothers are broadly true, 
and the conclusion that she is what some American enemies have called 
her, u the champion impostor of the age." Iam aware of the theory 
which some Spiritualists entertain to the effect that she may be a me- 
dium controlled by spirits whom she mistakes for living men, but this 
theory can only be held by people who are quite inattentive to nine- 
tenths of the statements she makes, not to speak yet of the testimony of 
others. How can she have lived under the roof of certain persons in 
Thibet for seven years and more, seeing them and their friends and re- 
lations going about the business of their daily lives, instructing her by 
slow degrees in the vast science to which she is devoted, and be in any 
doubt as to whether they are living men or spirits? The conjecture is 
absurd. She is either speaking falsely when she tells us that she has so 
lived among them, or the Adepts who taught her are living men. The 
Spiritualists' hypothesis about her supposed "controls" is built upon 
the statement she makes, that the Adepts appear to her in the astral 
form when she is at a distance from them. If they had never appeared 
to her in any other form, there would be room to argue the matter from 
the Spiritualists 1 point of view, or there might be, but for other circum- 



.20 



THE OCCULT WORLD 



stances again. But her astral visitors -are identical in all respects with 
:he men she has lived and studied amongst. At intervals, as I have 
said, she has been enabled to go back again and see them in the flesh. 
Her astral communication with them merely fills up the gap of her per- 
sonal intercourse with them, which has extended over a long series of 
years. Her veracity may, of course, be challenged, though I think 
it can be shown that it is most unreasonable to challenge this, but we 
might as reasonably doubt the living reality of our, nearest relations, 
of the people we live amongst most intimately, as suppose that Madame 
Blavatsky can be herself mistaken in describing the Brothers as living 
men. Either she must be right, or she has consciously been weaving 
an enormous network of falsehood in all her writings, acts, and con- 
versation for the last eight or nine years. And the plea that she may be 
a loose talker and given to exaggeration will no more meet the difficulty 
than the Spiritualists' hypothesis. Pare away as much as you like from 
the details of Madame Blavatsky' s statement on account of possible ex- 
aggeration, and that which remains is a great solid block of residual 
statement which must be either true, or a structure of conscious false- 
hood. And even if Madame Blavatsky' s testimony stood alone, we 
should have the wonderful fact of her total self-sacrifice in the cause of 
Theosophy to make the hypothesis of her being a conscious impostor one 
of the most extravagant that could be entertained. At first, when we in 
India who specially became her friends pointed this out, people said, 
" But how do you know that she had anything to sacrifice? she may 
have been an adventurer from the beginning." We proved this conjec- 
ture, as I have fully explained in my preface to the second edition of 
the "Occult World," and from some of the foremost people in Russia, 
her relations and affectionate friends, came abundant assurances of her 
personal identity. If she had not given up her life to Occultism she 
might have spent it in luxury among her own people, and in fact as a 
member of the aristocratic class. , 

Difficult as the hypothesis of her imposture thus becomes, we next find 
it in flagrant incompatibility with all the facts of Colonel Olcott's life. 
As undeniably as in the case of Madame Blavatsky, he has forsaken a 
life of worldly prosperity to lead the theosophical life, under circum- 
stances of great physical'self -denial, in India. And he also tells us that 
he has seen the Brothers, both in the flesh and in the astral form. By a 
long series of the most astounding thaumaturgic displays when he was 
first introduced to the subject in America, he was made acquainted with 
their powers. He has been visited at Bombay by the living man, his 
own special master, with whom he had first become acquainted by seeing 
him in the astral form in America. His life, for years, has been sur- 
rounded with the abnormal occurrences which Spiritualists again will 
sometimes conjecture — so wildly — to be Spiritualism, but which all 
hinge on to that continuous chain of relationship with the Brothers, 
which for Colonel Olcott has been partly a matter of occult phenomena, 
and partly a matter of waking intercourse between man and man. 
Again, in reference to Colonel Olcott, as in reference to Madame Bla- 
vatsky, I assert, fearlessly, that there is no compromise possible between 
the extravagant assumption that he is consciously lying in all he says 
about the Brothers, and the assumption that what he says establishes the 
existence of the Brothers as a broad fact, for remember that Colonel 
Olcott has now been a co-worker of Madame Blavatsky' s and in constant 
intimate association with her for eight years. The notion that she has 
been able to deceive him all this while by fraudulent tricks, apart from 
its monstrosity in other ways, is too unreasonable to be entertained. 
Colonel Olcott, at all events, knows whether Madame Blavatsky is 
fraudulent or genuine, and he has given up his whole life to the service 
of the cause she represents in testimony of his conviction that she is 
genuine. Again the spiritualistic hypothesis comes into play. Madame 



APPENDIX. 



221 



Blavatsky may be a medium whose presence surrounds Colonel Olcott 
with phenomena ; but then she is herself deceived by astral influences 
as to the true nature of the Brothers who are the head and front of the 
whole phenomenal display, and we have already seen reason, I think, to 
reject that hypothesis as absurd. There is no logical escape from the 
conclusion that things are broadly as she and Colonel Olcott say, or they 
are both conscious impostors, rival champions of the age in this respect, 
both sacrificing everything that worldly-minded people live for, to revel 
in this life-long imposture which brings them nothing but hard living 
and hard words. 

But the case for the authenticity of their statement, far from ending 
here, may in one sense be said to begin here. Our native Indian wit- 
nesses now come to the front. First, Damodar, of whom the well-known 
writer of " Hints on Esoteric Theosophy " speaks as follows in that pam- 
phlet : — 

" You specially in a former letter referred to Damodar, and you asked 
how it could be believed that the Brothers would waste time with a half- 
educated slip of a boy like him, and yet absolutely refuse to visit and 

convince men like — — and , Europeans of the highest education and 

marked abilities. But do you know that this slip ola boy has deliber- 
ately given up high caste, family and friends, and an ample fortune, all 
in pursuit of the truth? That he has for years lived that pure, unworldly 
self-denying life which we are told is essential to direct intercourse with 
the Brothers? 'Oh, a monomaniac,' you say ; 'of course he sees anything 
and everything.' But do not you see whither this leads you? Men who 
do not lead the life do not obtain direct proof of the existence of the 
Brothers, A man does lead the life and avers that he has obtained 
such proof, and you straightway call him a monomaniac, and refuse his 
testimony, . . . quite a 'heads I win, tails you lose,' sort of posi- 
tion." 

Damodar has seen some of the Brothers visit the headquarters of the 
Society in the flesh. He has repeatedly been visited by them in the 
astral shape. He has himself gone through certain initiations; he has 
acquired very considerable powers, for he has been rapidly developed as 
regards these, expressly that he might be an additional link of connec- 
tion, independently of Madame Blavatsky, between the Brothers, his 
masters, and the Theosophical Society. The whole life he leads is 
impressive testimony to the fact that he also knows the reality of the 
Brothers. On any other hypothesis we must include Damodar in the 
conscious imposture supposed to be carried on by Madame Blavatsky, 
for he has been her intimate associate and devoted'assistant, sharing her 
meals, doing her work, living under her roof at Bombay for several 
y&ars. 

Shall we, then, rather than believe in the Brothers accept the hypoth- 
esis that Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and Damodar are a band 
of conscious impostors ? In that case Ramaswamy has to be accounted 
for. Ramaswamy is a very respectable, educated, English-speaking 
native of Southern India, in Government service as a registrar of a court 
in Tinnevelly, I believe. I have met him several times. First, to indi- 
cate the course of his experience in a few words, — he sees the astral 
form of Madame Blavatsky's Guru, at Bombay ; then he gets clairau- 
dient communication with him, while many hundred miles away from 
all the Theosophists, at his own home in the South of India. Then he 
travels in obedience to that voice to Darjeeling; then he plunges wildly 
into the Sikkim jungles in search of the Guru, whom he has reason to 
believe in that neighborhood, and after various adventures meets him, 
— the same man he has seen before in astral shape, the same man whose 
portrait Colonel Olcott has, and whom he has seen, the living speaker of 
the voice that has been leading him on from Southern India. He has a 
long interview with him, a Waking, open-air, daylight interview, with a 



222 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



living man, and returns his devoted chela, as he is at this moment, and 
assuredly ever will be. Yet his master, who called him from Tinneveily 
and received him in Sikkim, is of those who on the spiritualistic hypoth- 
esis are Madame Blavatsky's spirit controls. 

Two more witnesses who personally know the Brothers next come to 
me at Simla, in the persons of two regular chelas who have been sent 
across the mountains on some business, and are ordered en passant to 
visit me and tell me about their master, my Adept correspondent. These 
men had just come, when I first saw them, from living with the Adepts. 
One of them, Dhabagiri Xath, visited me several days running, talked 
to me for hours about Koot Hoomi. with whom he had been living for 
ten years, and impressed me and one or two others who saw him as a 
very earnest, devoted, and trustworthy person. Later on, during his 
visit to India, he was associated with many striking occult phenomena 
directed to the satisfaction of native inquirers. He, of course, must be 
a false witness, invented to prop up Madame Blavatsky's vast impos- 
ture, if he is anything else than the chela of Koot Hoomi that he declares 
himself to be. 

Another native, Mohini, soon after this, begins to get direct communi- 
cation from Koot Hoomi independently altogether of "Madame Blavatsky, 
and when hundreds of miles away from her. He also becomes a devoted 
adherent to the Theosophical cause ; but Mohini must, as far as I am 
aware, be ranked in the second group of our witnesses, those who have 
had personal astral communication with the Brothers, but have not yet 
seen them in the flesh. 

Bhavani Rao, a young native candidate for c/iefa-ship, who came once 
in company with Colonel Olcott, but at a time when Madame Blavatsky 
was in another part of India, to see me at Allahabad, and spent two 
nights under our roof there, is another witness who has had independent 
communication with Koot Hoomi, and more than that, who is able him- 
self to act as a link of communication between Koot Hoomi and the 
outer world. For during the visit I speak of, he was enabled to pass a 
letter of mine to the master, to receive back his reply, to get off a second 
note of mine, and to receive back a little note of a few words in reply 
again. I do not mean that he did all this of his own power, but that his 
magnetism was such as to enable Koot Hoomi to do it through him. 
The experience is valuable because it affords a striking illustration of 
the fact that Madame Blavatskv is not an essential intermediary in the 
correspondence between myself and my revered friend. Other illustra- 
tions are afforded by the frequent passage of letters between Koot 
Hoomi and myself through the mediation of Damodar at Bombay, at a 
time when both Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were away at 
Madras, travelling about on a Theosophical tour, in the course of which 
their presence at various places was constantly mentioned in the local 
papers. I was at Allahabad, and I used, during that time, to send my 
letters for Koot Hoomi to Damodar at Bombay, and occasionally receive 
replies so promptly that it would have been impossible for these to have 
been furnished by Madame Blavatsky, then four or more days further 
from me in the course of post than Bombay. 

In this way, my very voluminous correspondence is, demonstrably as 
regards portions of it, and therefore by irresistible inference as regards the 
whole, not the work of Madame Blavatsky, or Colonel Olcott, which, if 
the Brothers are not a reality, it must be. The correspondence is visible 
on paper, a considerable mass of it. How has it come into existence; 
reaching me at different places and times, and in different countries, and 
through different people? I do not quite understand what hypotheses 
can be framed by a non-believer in the Brothers about my correspond- 
ence. I can think of none which are not at once negatived by some of 
the facts about it. 

It would be useless to copy out from statements that from time to time 



APPENDIX. 



223 



have been published in the Theosophist the names of native witnesses 
who have seen the astral forms of the Brothers — spectral shapes which 
they were informed were such — about the headquarters of the Society* 
at feombay. Quite a cloud of witnesses would testify to such experi- 
ences, and I myself, I may add, saw such an appearance on one occasion 
at the Society's present headquarters in Madras. But, of course, it 
might be suggested of such appearances that they were spiritualistic. 
On the other hand, in that case the argument travels back to the consid- 
erations already pointed out, which show that the occult phenomena 
surrounding Madame Blavatsky cannot be Spiritualism. They can be, 
in fact, nothing but what we who know \ her intimately and are now 
closely identified with the Society believe them to be with all convic- 
tion — viz., manifestations of the abnormal psychological powers of 
those whom we speak of as the Brothers. 

As I write, Colonel Olcott and Mr. Mohini Mohun Chatter- 
jee, mentioned above, are in London on a short visit, and 
many people have heard from their own lips the verification 
of what I have here stated — as far as it concerns them — and 
a great deal more besides. For during his recent tour in 
Northern India, ColoneL Olcott had an opportunity of meeting 
the Mahatma Koot Hoomi personally in the flesh, and thus 
identifying his previous u astral " visitor. At the same time 
that this meeting took place, Mr. W. T. Brown, a young 
Scotchman who has recently become a devoted adherent to 
the Theosophical cause, also saw the Mahatma, and Mr. Lane 
Fox, who has gone out to India to follow up the clue afforded 
by the Theosophical Society, has been in receipt in India, by 
abnormal methods, of correspondence from Koot Hoomi, while 
Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott have been in Europe. 
Taking into account, in fact, over and above the evidence col- 
lected in these pages, the abundant information connected 
with the adepts which has latterly been poured out through 
the pages of the Theosophist, the magazine of the Theosophical 
Society now published at Madras, the argument in the form in 
which it is here presented is really out of date. Any one who 
may still think with Mr. Kiddle, if he remains of the opinion 
expressed in his letter to Light, that the allegations of my book 
concerning the existence of the adepts and the facts of adept- 
ship still remain to he proved, must be inaccessible to the 
force of reason, or still unacquainted with the literature of 
the subject. / 

The second of the papers I wish to insert here, read like 
the first to a meeting of the Theosophists in London, dealt 
with the considerations which, after the existence of the Broth- 
ers is established, lead us to put confidence in the teaching 
they convey to us in regard to the origin and destinies of man 
and the whole problem of Nature. It is as follows : — ■ 

Many people who approach the consideration of occult philosophy are 
inclined to lay great emphasis on the difference between believing in the 
existence of those whom we call "the Brothers," and believing in the 
vast and complicated body of teaching which has now been accumulated 



224 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



by their recent pupils. I think it can really be shown that there is no 
halting place at which a man who sets out on this inquiry can rationally 
pause and say, " Thus far will I go, and no farther." The chain of con- 
siderations which will lead any one who has once realized the existence 
of the Adepts to feel sure that there can be no great error in a concep- 
tion of nature obtained with their help, consists of many links, but is 
really unbroken in its continuity, and equally capable of bearing a strain 
at any point. 

It consists of many links, partly because no one at present among 
those who are in our position as students — who are living, that is to 
say, an ordinary worldly life all the while that they are intellectually 
studying Occultism — can ever obtain in his own 'person a complete 
knowledge of the Adepts. He cannot, that is to say, come to know of 
his own personal knowledge all about even any one Adept. The full 
elucidation of this difficulty leads to a proper comprehension. of the prin- 
ciple on which the Adepts shroud themselves in a partial seclusion, a se- 
clusion which has only become partial within a very recent period, and 
was so complete until then that the world at large was hardly aware of 
the existence of any esoteric knowledge from which it could be shut out. 
This is a matter that is all the more important because experience has 
shown how the world at large has been quick to take offence at the hesi- 
tating and imperfect manner in which the Adepts have hitherto dealt 
with those who have sought spiritual instruction at their hands. Judg- 
ing the occult policy pursued by comparison with inquiries on the plane 
of physical knowledge, the impatience of inquirers is very natural, but 
none the less does even a limited acquaintance with the conditions of 
mystic research show the occult policy to be reasonable likewise. 

Of course, every one will admit that Adepts are justified in exercising 
great caution in regard to communicating any peculiar scientific knowl- 
edge which would put what are commonly called magical powers within 
the reach of persons not morally qualified for their exercise. But the 
considerations that prescribe this caution do not seem to operate also in 
reference to the communication of knowledge concerning the spiritual 
progress of man or the grander processes of evolution. And in truth the 
Adepts have come to that very conclusion ; they have undertaken the 
communication to the general public of their safe theoretical knowledge, 
and the effort they are making merely hangs fire, or may seem to do so 
to some observers, by reason of the magnitude of the task in hand, and 
the novel aspect it "wears, as well for the teachers as for the students. 
For remember, if there has been that change of policy on the part of the 
Adepts to which I have just referred, it has been "a change of such 
recent origin that it may almost be described as only just coming on. 
And if the question be then asked, Why has this safe theoretical knowl- 
edge not been communicated sooner, it seems reasonable to find a reply 
to that question in the actual state of the intellectual world around us 
at this moment. The freedom of thought of which English writers often 
boast is not very widely diffused over the world as yet ; and hardly, at 
all events, in any generation before this, could the free promulgation of 
quite revolutionary tenets in religious matters have been safely under- 
taken in any country. Communities in which such an undertaking 
would still be fraughtVith peril are even now more numerous than those 
in which it could be set on foot with any practical advantage. One can 
thus readily understand how in the occult world the question has been 
one of debate up to our own time, whether it was desirable as yet to pro- 
mote the dissemination of esoteric philosophy in the world at large at 
the risk of provoking the acrimonious controversies, and even more 
serious disturbances, liable to arise from the premature disclosure of 
truths which only a small minority would really be ready to accept. 
Keeping this in view, the mystery of the Adepts' reserve, up till re- 
cently, can hardly be thought* so astounding as to drive us on violent 



APPENDIX, 



225 



alternative hypotheses at variance with all the plain evidence concerning 
their present 'action. There is manifest reason why they should be care- 
ful in launching a body of newly-won disciples on to the general stream 
of human progress ; and added to this, the force of their own training is 
such as to make them habitually cautious to a far greater extent than 
the utmost prudence of ordinary life would render ordinary men. 
u But," it will be argued, "granting all this, but assuming that at last 
some of the Adepts, at all events, have come to the conclusion that some 
of their knowledge is ripe for presentation to the world, why do they 
not present as much as they do present, under guarantees of a more 
striking, irresistible, and conclusive kind than those which have actually 
been furnished? " I think the answer may be easily drawn from the 
consideration of the way in which it would be natural to expect that a 
change of policy amongst the Adepts in a matter of this kind would 
gradually be introduced. By the hypothesis we conceive them but just 
coming to the conclusion that it is desirable to teach mankind at large 
some portions of that spiritual science hitherto conveyed exclusively to 
those who give tremendous pledges in justification of their claim to 
acquire it. They will naturally advance, in dealing with the world at 
large, along the same lines they have learned to trust in dealing with 
aspirants for regular initiation. Never in the history of the world have 
they sought out such aspirants, courted them or advertised for them in 
any way whatever. It has been found an invariable law of human prog- 
ress that some small percentage of mankind will always come into the 
world invested by Nature with some of the attributes proper to adeptship, 
and with minds so constituted as to catch conviction as to the possibili- 
ties of the occult life, from the least little sparks of evidence on the sub- 
ject that may be floating about. Of persons so constituted some have 
always been found to press forward into the ranks of chelaship, to re- 
sort, that is to say, to any devices or opportunities that circumstances 
may afford them for fathoming occult knowledge. When thus besieged 
by the aspirant the Adept has always, sooner or later, disclosed himself. 
The change of policy now introduced prescribes that the Adept shall 
make one step towards the disclosure of himself in advance of the aspi- 
rant's demand upon him, but we can easily understand how the Adept, 
in first making this change, would argue that if many chelas have 
hitherto come forward in the absence of any spontaneous action from 
his side, it might be that an almost dangerous rush of ill-qualified as- 
pirants would be invited by any manifestation from him that should be 
more than a very slight one. At any rate, the Adept would say it would 
be premature to begin by too sensational a display of faculties inherent 
in advanced spiritual knowledge with which the world at large is as yet 
unfamiliar. It will be better at first to make such an offer as will only 
be calculated to inflame the imagination of persons onlv one step re- 
moved beyond those whose natural instincts would lead them into the 
occult life. This appears actually to have been the reasoning on which 
the Adepts have proceeded so far, and this may help us to understand 
how it is that, as I began by saying, no one person amongst those outer 
students, who have been called lay-chelas, has yet been enabled to say 
that of his own personal knowledge he knows all about any of the 
Adepts. 

On the other hand, putting together the various scattered revelations 
concerning the Brothers which have been distributed amongst various 
people in India belonging to the Theosophical Society, so much can be 
learned about the Adepts as to put us in a very strong position in regard 
to estimating their qualifications for speaking with confidence as fhey 
do about the actual facts of Nature on the superphysical plane. These 
scattered revelations — if my reasoning in what has gone before may be 
accepted — have been broken up and thrown about in fragments de- 
signedly, in order that as yet it should only be possible to arrive at a 



226 



THE OCCULT WORLD, 



full conviction concerning Adeptship after a certain amount of trouble 

spent in piecing together the disjointed proofs. But when this process 
is accomplished we are provided with a certain block of knowledge con- 
cerning the Adepts, out of which large inferences must necessarily grow. 
We rind, to begin with, that they do unequivocally possess the power of 
cognizing events and facts on the physical plane of knowledge with 
which we are familiar, by other means than those connected with the 
five senses. We find also that they unequivocally possess the power 
of emerging from their proper bodies and appearing at distant places in 
more or less ethereal counterparts thereof which are not only agencies 
for producing impressions on others, but habitations for the time being 
of the Adepts' own thinking principles, and thus in themselves, if the 
proof went no further, demonstrations of the fact that a human soul is 
something quite independent of brain matter and nerve centres. I do 
not stop now to enumerate instances. The record of evidence must be 
dissociated from its manipulation in arguments like the present, but the 
records are abundant and accessible for all who will take the trouble of 
examining them. Now, if we know that the Adept's soul can pass at 
his own discretion into that state in which its perceptive faculties are in- 
dependent of corporeal machinery, it is not surprising that he should be 
enabled to make, of his own knowledge, a great many statements con- 
cerning processes of Nature, reaching far beyond any" knowledge that 
can be obtained by mere physical observation. Take, for example, the 
Adepts' statement that certain other planets, besides this earth, are con- 
cerned with the growth of the great crop of humanity of which we form 
a part. This is not advanced as a conjecture or inference. The Adepts 
tell us that once out of the body they find they can cognize events on 
some other planets as well as in distant parts of our own. This is not 
the exceptional belief of an exceptionally organized individual, who 
may be regarded by doubters as hallucinated; there is no room for 
doubting the fact that it is the concurrent testimony of a considerable 
body of men engaged in the constant experimental exercise of similar 
faculties. In this way the fact becomes as much a fact of true science, 
as the fact that the great nebula in Orion, for instance, exhibits a gase- 
ous spectrum, and is therefore a true nebula. All of us who have star 
spectroscopes can ascertain that fact for ourselves, if we make use of a 
clear night when the conditions of observation are possible. To doubt 
it, would not be to show greater caution than is exercised by those who 
believe it, but merely an imperfect appreciation of the evidence. It is 
true that in regard to the condition of the other planets our acceptance 
of the Adepts' statement must be governed by our impressions concern- 
ing the bona fides, of their intention in telling us thattLey have made 
such and such observations. So far it is a matter of inference with us 
whether the Adepts are saying what tliey believe to be true — when they 
speak of the septenary chain of planets to which the earth belongs — or 
consciously deluding us with a rigmarole of statements which they know 
to be false. I think it can be shown in a variety of ways that the lat- 
ter supposition is absurd. But an exhaustive examination of its absurd- 
ity would be a considerable task in itself. For the moment the position 
I am endeavoring to establish is one which does not depend upon the 
question whether the Adepts are telling us, in reference to the planets, 
what they know to be true, or something which they know to be untrue. 
My present position is that at all events the Adepts themselves know 
what is true in the matter, and that position, it will be observed, is not 
vitiated by the fact that, as yet, we, their most recent pupils, are unable 
to follow in their footsteps and repeat the experiments on which their 
teaching rests. 

The same train of reasoning may be applied to the whole body of 
teaching which the Theosophical Society is now concerned in endeavor- 
ing to assimilate. As offered now to the uninitiated world, it can only 



APPENDIX. 



227 



take the form of a set of statements on authority. And that sort of 
statement is not one which is most agreeable to our methods or to the 
Adepts' habitual methods of teaching. For there is no chemical labora- 
tory in England where the system of teaching is more rigidly confined 
to the direction of the learner's own experiments, than that same system 
is adopted with occult chelas following the regular course of initiation. 
Step by step, as the regular chela is told that such and such is the fact 
in regard to the inner mysteries of Nature, he is shown how to apply 
his own developing faculties to the direct observation of such facts. 
But those developing faculties carry with them, as pointed out a while 
ago, fresh powers over Nature which can only be entrusted to those 
from whom the Adepts take the recognized pledges. In teaching out- 
siders as they are trying to do now, the Adepts must depart from their 
own habitual methods, — we must depart, if we wish to understand 
what they are willing to teach, from our habitual methods of inquiry. 
We must suspend our usual demand for proof of each statement made, 
in turn as it is advanced. We must rest our provisional trust in each 
statement on our broad general conviction which can be satisfied along 
familiar lines of demonstration, — that such men as the Adepts certainly 
exist, even though we cannot visit them at pleasure, that they must 
understand an enormous block of Nature's laws outside the range of 
those which the physical senses cognize, that in any statement they 
make to us they must be in a position to know absolutely whether that 
statement is or is not true. 

This much fully realized, the truth is that each inquirer in turn be- 
comes satisfied, pari passu with his realization of the case so far, that 
reason revolts against the notion that the Adepts can be engaged in 
their present attempt to convey some of their own knowledge to the 
world at large in any other than the purest good faith. It may be con- 
cluded that we who have come to the conclusion that their teaching is 
altogether to be accepted, are rearing a large inverted pyramid upon a 
small base. But the logical strength of our position is not impaired by 
this objection. In every branch of human knowledge, inferences far 
transcend the observed facts out of which they grow. And even in the 
most exact science of all, a theorem is held to be proved if any alter- 
native hypothesis is found, on examination, to be irrational. Moreover, 
the doctrine even of legal testimony recognizes the value of secondary 
evidence where in the nature of the case it is impossible that primary 
evidence can be forthcoming. That is exactly the state of the case in 
regard to the present attempt to bridge the gulf that separates the school 
of physical research from the school of spiritual knowledge. As long 
as we of this side were justified in doubting whether there was anywhere 
on earth such a thing as a school of spiritual knowledge, it may have 
been hardly worth while to worry ourselves with the stray fragments of 
its teaching which now and then'broke loose in barely intelligible shapes. 
But to doubt the existence of such a school now is equivalent, really, to 
doubting the statement about the nebula in Orion, according to the illus- 
tration I adduced just now. It can only arise from inattention to the 
facts of the whole case as these now stand, — from reluctance to take 
that trouble to examine these thoroughly, which still, as a sort of hedge, 
separates the Theosophical Society from the general community in the 
midst of which it is planted. Regarded in the light of an occult barrier, 
— as an obstacle which corresponds, in the case of the lay-chela, to the 
really serious ordeals which have to be crossed by the regular chela, — 
the necessity of taking this trouble can hardly be regarded as a hedge 
that it is difficult to traverse. And on the other side there lies a wealth 
of information concerning the mvsteries of Nature which clearly lights 
up vast regions of the past and future hitherto shrouded in total dark- 
ness for critical intelligences, and the prey for others of untrustworthy 
conjecture. For those who once thoroughly go into the matter, and ob- 



228 



THE OCCULT WORLD. 



tain a complete mastery over all the considerations I have put forward, 
— who thus obtain full conviction the Brothers certainly exist, that they 
must be acquainted with the actual facts about Nature behind and be- 
yond this life, that they are now ready to convey a considerable block 
of their knowledge to us, and that it is ridiculous to distrust their bona 
fides in doing this, — for all such true Theosophists of the Theosophical 
Society, nothing, at present, connected with spiritual success is compara- 
ble in Importance with the study of the vast doctrine now in process of 
delivery into our hands. 



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Chinese Buddhism. By the Rev. Joseph Edkins, D. D., author 
. of " Religion in China," etc. A volume of Sketches, Historical, 
Descriptive, and Critical. With full Indexes. 8vo, gilt top, S4.50. 
Dr. Edkins has here written a work fit to serve, for ordinary readers at least, the 
double purpose of a history of Buddhism and a critical examination of its effects 
upon the intellect and life of China. It is a work of great interest and of perma- 
nent value. — New York Evening Post. 

SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Oriental Religions, and their Relation to Universal Re- 
ligion. By the Rev. Samuel Johnson. 
India. 8vo, 802 pages, $5.00 ; half calf, SS.00. 

Samuel Johnson's remarkable work is devoted wholly to the religions and civil- 
ization of India ; is the result of twenty years' study and reflection by one of the 
soundest scholars and most acute thinkers of New England, and must be treated 
with all respect, whether we consider its thoroughness, its logical reasoning, or 
the conclusion, unacceptable to the majority, no doubt, at which it arrives.— 
Springfield Republican. 

China. 8vo, 1000 pages, $5.00; half calf, $S.00. 

Altogether the work of Mr. Johnson is an extraordinarily rich mine of reliable 
and far-reaching information on all literary subjects connected with China. . . . 
He decidedly impresses us as an authority on Chinese subjects. — E. J. ErrEL, 
Ph. D., Editor of The China Review (Hong Kong). 



Persia. With an Introduction by the Rev. O. B. Frothingham. 
8vo, 827 pages, $5.00 ; half calf, $8.00. 

The literature, already large, of comparative religion, has, indeed, no parallel 
yet to this monument of broad scholarship and ardent faith. ... It is an honor 
to the cause alike of letters and of religion. — Literary World (Boston). 

OMAR KHAYYAM. 

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer Poet of Persia. Ren- 
dered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald. With a Life 
of the Author and Notes. Red-Line Edition. Square 16mo, red 
edges, $1.00. 

The Same. With ornamental title-page and fifty-six magnificent 
full-page Illustrations from designs by Elihu Vedder, repro- 
duced by the Albertype process. Bound in a new and unique 
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THE KORAN. 

Selections from the Koran. By Edward William Lane. A 
New Edition, revised and enlarged, with an introduction by Stan- 
ley Lane Poole, and an Illustration. 8vo, gilt top, $3.50. 
For Mr. Lane's introduction Mr. Poole has substituted a sketch of the early- 
Arabs, the salient points of Islam, and the history of the Koran. Mr. Poole seems 
to have succeeded in carrying out the original intention of Mr. Lane, and making 
a book of general interest. — Boston Advertiser. 

A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran : Comprising 
Sale's Translation and Preliminary Discourse, with additional 
Notes and Emendations. Together with a complete Index to the 
Text, Preliminary Discourse and Notes. By the Rev. E. M. 
Wherry. Volumes I. and II. each $4.50. 

The work has grown out of the wants which the author felt in pur- 
suing his own study of the Koran and his work as a missionary among 
Muslims. Though primarily intended for the use of those engaged 
in missionary work among Mohammedans, it contains so much im- 
portant matter explanatory of the Koran that it will be found to 
have great value to every one interested, as so many now are, in 
the study of comparative religion. 

MENCIUS. 

The Mind of Mencius ; or, Political Economy founded upon Moral 
Philosophy. A Systematic Digest of Doctrines of the Chinese Phi- 
losopher Mencius, classified and translated with explanatory Notes 
by Rev. Ernst Faber. Translated from the German, with Ad- 
ditional Notes, by Rev. A. B. Hutchinson, Hong Kong. 8vo, gilt 
top, $3.50. 

A. P. SINNETT. 

Esoteric Buddhism. By A. P. Sinnett, President of the Simla 
Eclectic Theosophical Society, author of "The Occult World." 



it. x J^*- 

With an Introduction written especially for the American Edition. 

16mo, $1.25. ~ 69* - 

Contents : Esoteric Teachers ; .The Constitution of Man ; The 
Planetary Chain; The World Periods ; Devachan; Kama Loca; The 
Human Tide- Wave ; The Progress of Humanity ; Buddha; Nirvana; 
The Universe ; The Doctrine Reviewed. 

In the East the inner spiritual meaning of Buddhism has never been put into 
books, but is confined to those who have the religious exaltation that enables them 
to receive it. It is this meaning which Mr. Sinnett has been the first to give to the 
Western world. . . . Mr. Sinnett has rendered an important service to speculation 
as well as to religious thought. — Boston Advertiser. 

The Occult World. By A. P. Sinnett. New Edition. 16mo, 
$1.25. 

This new edition of a book which has been much talked about in 
England and America contains a new Preface written expressly for it 
by the author, and an Appendix embracing matter of peculiar inter- 
est to American readers, especially to spiritualists. 

C. P. TIELE. 

History of the Egyptian Religion. By Dr. C. P. Tiele, of 
Leyden. Translated from the Dutch, with the assistance of the 
author, by James Ballingal. 8vo, gilt top, $3.00. 

Dr. Tiele shows at the outset grasp of thought and carefulness in the use of the 
abundant materials furnished by the ceaseless toilers in the obscure history of an- 
tiquity who are the boast of the present century. He emulates the great departed 
Professors of the University of Leyden in the minuteness of his knowledge and the 
sobriety of his conclusions, using German and French authorities without bias, and 
with a keen critical faculty of his own. — New York Ti?nes. 

ALBRECHT WEBER. 

History of Indian Literature.- By Albrecht Weber. Trans- 
lated from the Second German Edition by John Mann, M. A., 
and Theodor Zacharue, Ph. D., with the sanction of the author. 
8vo, gilt top, $5.00. 

I trust that the work will become a class book in all the Indian colleges, as it is 
the first and only scientific one which deals with the whole field of Vedic, Sanskrit, 
and Prakrit literature. — Dr. Buhler, Inspector of Schools in India. 

Wherever the language and institutions and history of India are studied, it must 
be used and referred to as authority. — Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale College. 



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